Being 15 is Tougher
by BrightBlueConverse
Summary: Last year, he proved himself as a hero and finally got his share of glory. Nico's looking foward to things going back to normal; but unfortunately they'll do the opposite. He thought being 14 was tough? Well, being 15 is tougher. Sequel to Being14isTough
1. Back to the Beginning

**HERE IT IS!**

**Yayy! Sorry this took forever, school has been chaotic :P But I'm back now, and so is this storyyy! **

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.**

You would think that after 10 months of sulking around camp and spending my days summoning random spirits just to have a conversation, I would be happy when summer rolled around and campers returned for their vacation. Ecstatic, even.

But when Percy knocked loudly on my cabin door after his arrival, waking me up at the ungodly hour of _10 a.m., _the only thing I felt was annoyance.

"Nicooooo?" he called out. "Where art thou, uh, Nico?"

I attempted to grunt in reply from where I was buried under a mound of blankets, despite the warm summer weather, but if I did manage to make a noise it was inaudible to my dearest cousin standing across the room.

Unsatisfied, he decided to annoy me even more and flip on the light switch, causing the room to flood with obnoxiously bright light.

I didn't respond, and soon enough I heard footsteps making their way towards me. Before I knew it, he had dragged me out of bed and was forcing me to come outside and greet all of our (a.k.a. _his) _friends.

Walking outside, I was almost trampled by all the campers running around and greeting their friends and siblings with hugs and screams of delight. You could hear everybody sharing stories about their school year, what they got for their birthday, their numerous failed relationships, and various other boring things. Aphrodite girls squealed joyfully and complimented on each other's new haircuts and outfits. The sky was cloudy and thunder boomed loudly, but that didn't seem to dampen anyone's good mood.

It all annoyed me to no end.

Camp Half-Blood looked like an entirely different place when there were more than just fifteen campers.

The quiet, empty cabins were now filled with campers rushing inside to claim the best beds, or ones next to their favorite siblings. The volleyball court that nobody bothered using in the cold winter weather now had a few young boys playing on it. Thalia's tree, which had stood on the top of the hill alone for so long, was now crowded with kids saying goodbye to their parents or lugging their luggage out of the camp van.

I spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd, but most looked new to me to me. A couple of the new kids looked a bit overwhelmed by the amount of demigods running around and screaming. A pair of boys looked at each other nervously, and a little girl clung to an older kid's side. When I first came to camp I was overjoyed, so I couldn't quite understand why one kid that stood off to the side looked like he was about to empty the contents of his stomach.

I ignored him, and kept walking alongside Percy. He had just graduated high school a few days ago. That is, unless this past year has gone unbelievably horrible for him and he ended up flunking every class. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past him.

But we all know that didn't happen, since he has a genius daughter of Athena as his girlfriend just a phone call away; who I'm sure was more than happy to help him when he decided to procrastinate on writing an essay for US History, or maybe an assignment for calculus. Really, it could be anything and she would have no problem spending 3 hours on the phone with him trying to help him pass his senior year.

Speaking of this brilliant girlfriend of his, he had insisted before we go to the dining pavilion we had to go and meet up with her. Annabeth had arrived a few days before, and was in the Athena cabin most-likely working on some architectural masterpiece that would blow the minds of all the college professors she would soon have.

I quietly followed Percy to the familiar cabin, silently hoping no more annoying kids would come up and ask if he was really the guy who saved Olympus. It was really horribly irritating.

Percy had already seen Annabeth – since she was obviously the first one he visited once he got here earlier this morning – so luckily there was no disgusting romantic moment when we walked through the door. He walked over to Annabeth, put his arm casually over her shoulder, and pecked her on the cheek. I rolled my eyes, and sat down on a trunk sitting in front of a bed.

"Nico and I were going to get some food, so we decided to drop by and see if you wanted to come." said Percy. She smiled for a moment, but then frowned.

"I would, but I really have to finish this math packet first." she picked up a thick packet off of her bed and waved it in the air.

"Math packet? But… it's summer!" I told her, as if all of the academic junk that she memorized had taken up so much of her brain that there wasn't any room for remembering the seasons.

She sighed, "_Obviously. _But if I'm going to one of the most prestigious schools in America, I have to come prepared! I can't just hope to remember everything I learned from grade 1 to 12! I have to practice, practice, practice!" she insisted. Percy glanced over at me; we both knew she was being ridiculous and that she graduated as valedictorian of her high school, but once she gets something into her head there's no convincing her otherwise.

"Alright," Percy started, "Well, we can wait, right Nico?"

"Uh… I guess…" Really, I didn't want to. But as pathetic as it was, I had nothing better to do than sit here and wait for my cousin's girlfriend to finish her math packet in the middle of June. What has my life become?

Annabeth smiled. "Awesome. Okay, it'll only take me a few minutes, I promise!" She sat down at one of the many desks and working spaces in the Athena cabin, and began quickly scribbling down answers and mathematical equations on the packet, flying through page after page.

And still, it began to bore me.

Percy was fine; it seemed he had become accustomed to this. He sat down next to her and watched as she effortlessly solved question after question.

Soon campers started coming into the cabin and talking with each other. I guess they were all used to Percy constantly being in the Athena cabin, but they stared at me like I was a 5-headed hydra (that's actually a bad example, because when you see a five-headed hydra you don't stare at it, you run away as fast as you can).

I ignored the rest of the campers, but was immediately bored.

After 2 minutes, I began to tap my foot.

After 5 minutes, I started to play with a pencil on the floor until I got bored and snapped it in half.

After 10 minutes, I resorted to pacing around the room.

After 15 minutes, I had laid down on one of the beds and tried to see how far I could throw a crumpled piece of paper up into the air without it hitting the ceiling.

After 20 minutes, I stood up, walked over to Percy and said,

"Okay, if this is how we're going to spend the rest of the day, I think I'll just get back to my cabin before it's too late." I mock saluted them and turned to leave, but unfortunately some idiot had decided to leave their trunk right behind my legs. As I attempted to pivot and turn, I tripped and fell onto someone else, knocking them down with me.

I stood up, prepared to shout out angry accusations and try to make it look like I wasn't as clumsy as it had just appeared, but I was momentarily surprised when I stared down at the victim of my fall and immediately recognized the familiar face.

"Jill?" A roll of her eyes assured me it was in fact Jillian Mistero, daughter of Athena and possibly the most sarcastic girl alive.

"Wow. You remembered my name. Now I feel so darn special!" she replied and held out her hand, waiting for me to help her.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her up, which was when I realized she had grown. Like, a lot. Last year she had just been leaving her awkward early-teen years, but now I could easily picture her strutting down the halls of high school (although I know she would probably be hurrying to class – rather than strutting – so she could get a seat up front and begin copying down the notes as oppose of mingling at the lockers, but still).

"Déjà vu, eh?" she said.

I stepped back (almost tripping over the stupid trunk again, but luckily managing to catch myself in time) and gave her a closer look. She was dressed in the same horribly unattractive orange t-shirt as everyone else, and she had on denim shorts and converse; which, if memory serves right, was close to what she wore almost every day last year. But this time around, she looked so… _different. _

Her skinny kid-ish legs were now longer, fuller, and more muscular (but not in that disgusting women body builder kind of muscular, more like she was doing a whole lot of running in her spare time). Her hair was still blonde and wavy, but instead of being pulled back into a ponytail or sloppy bun, it was down and hung over her shoulders and down to her back. I knew it wouldn't be that way for long, since she had an array of colorful hair bands hanging loose around her wrist.

Before I could notice any other changes, Annabeth had stepped over the trunk and was giving her sister a hug.

"Look how much you've grown! You look like a model!" Annabeth gushed.

"And look who we have here, Miss High School Graduate!" said Jill, causing Annabeth to grin.

While they were talking, I slipped past them and snuck out of the cabin and into the chaos that was Camp Half-Blood. Two kids ran past practicing their swordsmanship, while the one of the cabin leaders ran after them, shouting "No! You can only use your swords in the designated areas! Stop!" I laughed, because he had bigger issues to deal with than two reckless kids being idiots.

Like, for example, the Hecate girls standing next to a few daughters of Aphrodite, making a "magic perfume" that they said would set a love spell on any guy that got a whiff, but would most likely turn the eager teenage girls into rabbits for a day. In fact, they something similar last year to a few unsuspecting sons of Apollo; the Hecate girls told them it was cologne that would turn them into "chick magnets". It did, actually. But only if by "chick" you mean "bird".

For two whole days they had flocks of winged creatures chasing them around camp.

It must've been horrible for the poor guys, but it was hysterical to the rest of us. That's what they get for trusting daughters of Hecate. Has everybody forgotten about Circe? You know, that crazy daughter of Hecate that used to turn guys into pigs, but then got even crazier and started to turn them into guinea pigs instead?

Annabeth _still _tells the story of when "C.C" turned Percy into a helpless rodent, and she had to come to the rescue while the oh-so-wonderful son of Poseidon was 4 inches tall, sitting in a cage with a hamster wheel.

It really was quite entertaining to hear while sitting around the fire.

I walked past a girl giving directions to the bathroom, and another who was telling a new camper that at night werewolves come out of the woods and if you forget to lock the door they'll come inside and eat you. I smiled at the horrified expression on the kid's face.

I ditched the idea of going back to my cabin, and decided to head over to the dining pavilion instead. I was tired of eating nothing but potato chips and soda, and decided to actually have a meal for once. I didn't know how long Percy and Annabeth would be, and I really didn't feel like waiting for them, so I just sat down and ate possibly most delicious meal ever made: pizza, waffle fries, and a chocolate milkshake.

Like the beginning of every summer, Chiron calls a camp meeting in the afternoon to welcome new and old campers, and talk about the camp rules. Having already heard the speech 3 times, I spent the majority of the time picturing what it would be like to have wings; even though they wouldn't be useful to me, since if I ever got over 2,000 feet into the air I would undoubtedly be shot down with one of Uncle Zeus' lightning bolts.

So we all sat around the campfire like a horrible clichéd summer camp movie, and listened as the Apollo kids attempted to get everyone singing along with their songs. But everyone was too excited, and you could barely hear the poor kids trying to sing over everyone's talking. Eventually, Chiron gave up and dismissed everyone for the night.

A daughter of Aphrodite already had her arm around a muscular guy, while two daughters of Demeter sat on the steps to their cabin and braided flowers into their younger sister's hair. As I walked past and the flowers began to wither, the sisters glared at me. A son of Apollo, Jason, strummed his guitar happily as he made his way back to his cabin. Travis and Conner attempted to herd all of the new unclaimed campers into the cabin; but everyone was pushing and shoving so they told all the campers that all the noise they were making would attract the harpies. The kids shut up and made their way in quietly.

I walked into my familiar cabin, and laid down on the soft bed. From a few cabins over, I could hear some girls gossiping about the cute new campers and somebody having an argument over who was stronger.

I smiled. Everything was back to normal.

At least, for a little bit.


	2. Cinnamon Toast

**Ew. This took forever to write and I'm not at all sure why. But whatever! Here it isss!**

**For some reason when I was writing this, these weird lines came up and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of them, so I don't know if they're gonna upload like that or not, so just ignore them. Heh, sorry. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

After the chaotic first day of camp, it was a relief to walk outside and _not _be momentarily deafened by the noise.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't loud. Campers still ran around and talked obnoxiously to their friends while they walked to breakfast.

There was still a bunch of Aphrodite girls giggling, and a bunch of Ares kids being the idiots they are. Annoyed, I continued walking to the dining pavilion.

When you've been attacked by so many monsters, ghosts, goddesses that want to turn you into a flower, angry campers, and just plain weird New Yorkers, your defense skills tend to kick in pretty quickly.

So when an arrow flew through the air and embedded itself in the ground right near my feet, 5 seconds hadn't passed before I had taken out my sword and swung it around to scare any possibly attackers.

Scanning my surroundings, I came to a surprisingly realization:

There was nobody there. Well, besides those few campers staring at me like I was some kind of freak show (which, to be honest, I really was).

I must've looked horribly confused, so somebody pointed to the direction of the archery range.

_Duh, Nico._

I spotted a group of Apollo campers practicing, while some Athena kids sat off to the side waiting for their turn. I picked up the arrow, and waved it in the air for somebody to see.

Soon enough, girl began to run over from the archery range, her ponytail flapping wildly with every jog she took. When she reached me, she put her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath, even though she had only run for a short distance. She had the looks of an Apollo kid, and I guess running was not their specialty.

After a moment of panting, she straightened her back and looked up at me. "I am _so _sorry!" She had big brown eyes that looked sincerely apologetic, even though the arrow had obviously not hurt me.

I shrugged. "S'okay." I handed her the bow, and she took it graciously and checked to make sure it was still intact.

"It's just that last night I didn't get to sleep until, like, 2 and I can't sleep past sunrise for obvious reasons, so I was forced to get out of bed. And _then, _I got to breakfast and for some reason there wasn't any cinnamon toast, which is like my all time favorite so I was in a seriously bad mood and I guess I was just out of it during archery, and-" she looked at my expression, "you _really _don't care, do you?"

I smiled. "Nope. In fact, I didn't hear half of what you just said. Something about the sunset and cinnamon toast."

She let out a quick laugh, "It was the sun_rise, _but I do love the sunset."

She tucked a piece of loose strand of light brown hair behind her ear, and kept on talking. Usually, I would ignore her and walk away, but since I had nothing better to do I decided to stick around.

I barely noticed the familiar blonde that jogged over.

"Hey, Hailey, what's taking you so lo-" she paused, "Oh, hi Nico."

I looked over. "Hi, Jill. Whatcha doin'?"

"Nothing, really. I _was_ in archery but my partner decided to come over here and have a conversation, while her best friend had to stay behind and retrieve her own arrows after each shot." She glared at Hailey. "But I'm fine. Really, I am. I'll just go back and work twice as hard as everyone else, because I just _had _to choose a slacker as my best friend."

Hailey, as I shall now call her, smiled. "Oh, you're just jealous that I'm over here socially mingling while you're over there all sweaty and gross."

Jill sighed. "I'm pretty sure that's not it. Believe what you want, but either way we have to get back. The instructor will have our necks if we miss anymore of the lesson. I had to tell her I had left my copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird _at breakfast, and was afraid the Stoll's would steal it."

"Travis and Conner? Stealing a _book_?" asked Hailey.

"I was improvising, alright? When that didn't work, I told her it had a $20 bill as the bookmark, since nothing else was available at the time." explained Jill.

"Did you seriously? Twenty dollars?" asked Hailey, looking like she was prepared to make a mad dash towards the dining pavilion to get the money for herself.

Her friend rolled her eyes. "No, you idiot. I was lying."

Hailey, seeming unfazed by the insult, just smiled and said "Oh, alright. Let's go." Hailey and Jill began to walk back to the archery range; their bright orange shirts standing out against the green grass and blue skies.

As they walked, Hailey called back, "Bye, Nico! It was nice meeting you!" I was too lazy to respond, so I simply raised my hand and waved slightly. She seemed fine with it, and skipped ahead of Jill.

Speaking of dearest Jill, after Hailey's goodbye she turned around to face me. She opened her mouth slightly, looking like she was about to say something, but quickly shut it and ran to catch up with her friend.

I would've thought about it more, but my stomach was stronger than my mind, and my legs seemed to move themselves toward the direction of the dining pavilion.

After eating an incredibly boring bowl of cereal for breakfast, repeatedly flicking pieces of grass at some camper until they noticed, and walking around aimlessly for twenty minutes, I decided to just give up on doing anything exciting for the day and made my way back to my cabin. Outside was too loud and… sunny. It was horribly annoying me.

As I was about to walk into my cabin, I noticed a piece of paper stapled to the outer side of my door that I hadn't noticed earlier that morning. It was a schedule of activities for everyday, along with the other cabins scheduled for the same thing.

**8:30:**

**Archery (Apollo, Athena, Hades)**

Whoops. I guess I missed that one.

**9:00:**

**Canoeing (Hades, Ares, Hecate, Hebe)**

Uh, I'll pass.

**10:30:**

**Arts and crafts (Aphrodite, Hades, Demeter)**

No thanks.

**11:15:**

**Volleyball (Apollo, Nyx, Hephaestus, Hades)**

Maybe next time.

I went through the list, saw nothing that appealed to me, and happily walked into my cabin. I flipped on a light switch (because as much as I liked the dark, I didn't have night vision) and walked over to my bed. I sat down on it, and contemplated summoning some spirits or shadow-traveling somewhere cooler than summer camp.

I mean, seriously? Summer camp? We were half _god_. We should be spending every waking moment in a palace, with beautiful girls serving us platters of junk food, and the rest of the world bowing down to worship us. And Hannah Montana should be there too, so we could throw things at her when we got bored. It would be a pretty good life, eh?

But of course, reality had to come around and smack me in the face. There was a small knock on my door, and a little voice called out "Hello?"

Ugh. People are annoying.

Ignoring the knock, I continued dreaming about the pool filled with chocolate pudding that I would have. So you could swim and enjoy chocolaty delic-

_Knock knock_

Angrily, I stood up, walked over to the door, and swung it open. I looked down to those who dare disrupt my peace, and two small faces stared back at me.

"Hi!" said the girl. She looked about 10, and was clutching a younger boy's hand. They both had light brown hair, and big green eyes. Freckles dotted the girl's face, and when she smiled I saw a gap that showed where a baby tooth used to be.

"Listen, I was in the middle of something really important, and I don't have time for a conversation. Sorry, but maybe the Aphro-"

The little girl rudely interrupted me. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but we're lost. Can you show us where the stables are?"

I sighed, annoyed. "Go to the right until you see a group of trees-"

"What kind of trees?" she asked, interrupting me yet again.

"The kind that has those green leaves. Then, take another right and follow the scent of manure. You'll be there soon enough." I went to close the door, but the girl grabbed onto my arm before I had the chance to.

"I don't think we'll be able to find that. Can't you just take us there? It would only take a minute…" The little boy next to her nodded vigorously, and I found myself feeling bad for the two. I sure knew what it felt like to be lost, in more ways than one.

Defeated, I sighed and walked out of my cabin, closing the door behind me.

"Alright," I said, "let's go."

Soon enough, I found myself leading them towards the horses, Pegasus, and other mythical equestrians.

"Thanks!" they said, and ran off towards the instructor.

Since Camp Half-Blood doesn't exactly have a lot of money to hire teachers, and there isn't a surplus of older demigods that are willing to spend their summers at camp instructing snotty kids, it isn't uncommon for a camper to be teaching a class.

So, I wasn't too surprised when the instructor that the kids ran up to was no other than the oh-so-familiar Hailey.

Okay, just kidding. I was pretty surprised.

I couldn't hear what she said to the kids, but she pointed them over towards two horses all ready to go, and then climbed onto her own.

I had assumed the class had already started, since the other kids were already mounted high on their horses with those funny looking black hats on. Everybody was at least 2 feet taller than me when they were sitting on the animals, and they were all dressed in light colored clothes so they wouldn't get too hot from the sun.

I stood at a respectful 5'8" in black jeans and a red shirt.

Basically, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

It wasn't long before _the instructor _noticed me and her horse began to trot over.

Looking down at me from the height of her horse, she smiled. "Ah, look who has returned! You here for the lesson, or just for the delightful smell of horse poop?"

"Although they both sound tempting, I was just showing those kids how to get here. And now I must go. So… bye." I turned around and began walking away, but she, along with her giant horse, followed me.

"Aw, you have to go so soon? I was hoping you would wanna stay and clean the stables while I took the campers around the trails…" She laughed at her joke, and readjusted herself on the saddle.

"I wish I c-" Cutting me off, a strange sound traveled across the camp.

It sounded like a cry, but from a mutant beaver, or something just as weird.

The kids on the horses stared around in confusion. Hailey opened her mouth like she was about to ask what that was, but soon another scream echoed throughout the camp. And this one was very human.


	3. Surprise, Surprise

**These chapters just take longer and longer to write each time. Blah. But here it is! TA-DA!**

**P.S. I'm already getting excited for Halloween(: **

**Disclaimer: I don't own squat :P**

Before anybody had time to wonder what was going on, 300 demigods sprung into action. The whole camp was dying for a little commotion, and we all sprinted over to get towards the source of the excitement. Before I had the chance to take two steps, Hailey, along with all the other kids on horseback, galloped past me faster than I would've thought possible.

Campers ran by, weighed down by the armor strapped to their chests and backs. A few waved their shields in the air, like this was just one big game of capture the flag. We had trained for something like this for hours and hours every day, and we were more than ready.

One thing they didn't prepare us for was trying to get to the actual fight while shoving past a mob of slow runners. Because you can't be saving someone's life if you were stuck behind some kid jogging so they didn't get a cramp or something equally as ridiculous.

Pushing past person after person, I struggled to get to the front of the crowd. Even though the first instinct was to run towards the action, I cursed myself for not hopping onto a horse when I had had the chance.

I shoved a son of Aphrodite out of my way, and could finally see what was going on.

"Medusa!" shouted some people. Campers shielded their eyes and held their swords straight out in front of them, in hopes it would protect them from the hideous beast. Other people, either extremely brave or extremely stupid, rushed straight onward to fight the creature.

I decided that I wouldn't really like to be turned to stone, so I looked away before I was nothing more than an astonishingly beautiful statue. Could you imagine how many girls would be disappointed? I just couldn't let that happen.

But how could this possibly be Medusa? Didn't Percy just kill her, like 6 years ago (he often likes to gloat about it)? Could she have reformed _that _quickly?

Nope. I think not!

After convincing myself over and over that there was a one in a million chance that she was looking right at me, I quickly took a glance to see if it really was her/it.

One look assured me that if it wasn't her, it was something just as terrifying.

Vivid green snakes grew out of her scalp, coiling around each other while hissing at campers. Long bronze talon-like things curled from her fingertips, on her freakishly-long hands. She literally looked like skin and bone, with the exception of the golden wings erupting out of her back.

One ear-shattering screech of hers sent campers flying back in a gust of wind. Once they were thrown back, few actually got up and ran to attack her again.

Suddenly, I noticed Chiron galloping around yelling commands to the campers.

"Fall back!" he shouted. "Don't attack!"

Some campers obeyed him, and ran back to safety. But others, whether they couldn't hear him or they just didn't care, continued running towards the beast. Soon Apollo campers were racing ahead and carrying bodies away from the fight as quickly as possible. Other campers that weren't fighting helped out, too. Some treated the injured with care, while others merely flopped the body over their shoulder and jogged towards the infirmary.

Hailey, who had been attacking the monster with her arrows (along with the rest of her siblings), began to scoop injured campers up onto her horse and carry them away from the battle.

One thing I was confused about was the disappointing lack of statues lying around. I mean, if she was Medusa shouldn't there be a surplus of stone figures decorated around the battle field?

Confused, I let myself walk farther towards the fight while keeping my eyes strictly on the ground. All around me I heard battle cries, either of excitement or terror. There were still a lot of kids running in between the creature and me, so I didn't worry about being viciously attacked anytime soon.

Stupidly, I looked up. But fortunately for me, I was just in time to see the dragon guarding Thalia's tree, Peleus, finally take some action and strike the monster. She went down with a screech, but was silent after that and quickly vanished into a large cloud of dust.

Basically, it was the weirdest fight ever.

Some campers, still pumped on adrenaline from the fight, cheered and did cartwheels – as if they were in some bad movie.

Others walked back to their cabins tiredly, possibly to take advantage of this break and take a nap. After a fight, we never go straight back to our scheduled activities. While Chiron sorts everything out and the Apollo kids begin to heal the injured, we all get a break.

Some campers were unaffected by fights like these. For example, Travis Stoll and Katie Gardner, who had recently become an "item", were using their break as an opportunity to make out under some tree. Others, like a younger daughter of Aphrodite, weren't handling it so well. The little girl had broken out into loud sobs, and was being comforted by her older sister.

I, for one, didn't understand why everyone got so worked up over these things. We're demigods, this stuff happens to some of us (myself included) almost every day. Sure, maybe not extreme as Medusa, but sometimes it's pretty darn close.

Speaking of the evil creature we all know and love, rumors of Medusa were flying around camp quicker than… well, they were spreading pretty quickly. So far, I've heard she claimed "Since Perseus took my head, I'll take his in return!". I've also heard that she came to make an agreement with Dionysus about their children (which is a complete rumor, or at least I hope it is).

I had made my way back to my cabin, but I wasn't in there for long before there was a loud knock on my door.

I made a silent promise that if it was two annoying little kids I would send them off and go back to my business; but when I opened the door, I was looking at someone a wee bit taller than a few seven year olds.

"Nico," greeted Chiron, "glad to see you're unharmed from this battle." I nodded, unsure what to say.

"Why don't you join me outside?" he offered, and I stepped out of my cabin.

**(this is where a line would go but my computer's stupid and won't put one in)**

"So, what you're telling me is that _wasn't _Medusa?"

Chiron looked at me, most likely annoyed. He had just spent the past 5 minutes trying to explain it to me, but I couldn't quite grasp the information.

He sighed, "No, Nico. You know the story of how Medusa came to be, am I right?" I nodded, "Well it seems you've forgotten about her two sisters, the Gorgons. And if I'm correct, that is what the creature was: One of the Gorgons."

I was still confused. "But if she was a Gorgon, wouldn't she have turned everybody into stone?" It wasn't just Medusa who could do that; all Gorgons could. "I didn't see any statues lying around."

"Yes," he started, "that's actually exactly why I am in need of your assistance."

I hadn't even noticed we were walking towards the infirmary until we had gotten there. This whole thing was very confusing.

Chiron began to talk quieter and quicker, as if we were in some secret spy movie. "Nico, I understand you have the power to feel if someone's death is near." Goosebumps began to prick up on my arms. People had gotten _that_ seriously hurt? He didn't wait for a sign from me to continue talking, "Something very strange has happened. Many campers made eye contact with the monster, and yet nothing happened to them during battle. But afterwards, they started dropping like flies."

My eyes widened a fraction. "You mean, they're all _dead_?"

"Not quite," he said. It didn't make me feel any better. "But if we don't do something about it, I believe that's how it will end. That's where you come in, Nico. I need you to see if they are close to death, or merely frozen in this state."

"Frozen in wh-" I began to ask, but was cut off by Chiron.

"Just go see for yourself, child. And don't be scared at their, uh, appearances." He warned. That didn't exactly make me excited to go inside, but I had no choice, and slowly creaked the door of the infirmary open and slipped inside, scared to make too much noise.

In the infirmary, there were rows of hospital beds lining the walls. Upstairs, they had personal rooms for patients that would be spending a long period of time with them.

But in this case, all I had to do was walk inside and I was instantly greeted by kids lying on the thin mattresses.

Almost every bed was occupied with a camper, still dressed in their battle gear. Some looked towards me, while others stared blankly into space.

_Damn, _I thought. It was much harder to measure someone's life energy if they were fully conscious. I was half-hoping they would all be in some kind of medically-induced coma, to make things easier on my part.

The few staring at me were making me feel awkward.

"Um, hi." I said, and gave a slight wave. There was no response from any of them.

Confused, I walked over to one of them, and knelt down so I was eye-to-eye with them.

"Hello?" I stared for any sort of acknowledgment that I was there, but the camper stayed the same.

"Hellloooo?" I tried again, but the result was the same. He laid there, still as a statue.

Annoyed, I shook his shoulder, hoping he would respond. But when I pushed him he just flopped over. This wouldn't be that strange, without the exception that when I moved him his body stayed in the exact same position, but now he was on his other side.

I stood up abruptly and looked at the other campers. They weren't just still, they were _frozen._ Not the kind of frozen that turns your toes blue and makes you shiver; the kind of frozen that you can't move. Frozen in place.

I kept repeating what Chiron had said to me, and yet I couldn't help but see the campers as dead bodies; the glassy look in their eyes just adding to the effect. There must've been over a dozen of them, all lying on the same dull white beds with the same boring blue blanket.

Realizing this made my whole perspective change. Instead of being in a room with a bunch of injured campers, I was in a room with a bunch of people stuck in a state of paralyzation.

And only then did I notice what Chiron was talking about; how he warned me about their appearance.

All twelve campers looked like someone had replaced their skin with paper, and decided to stamp big purple circles all over. They looked horrible, and their still bodies reminded me of mannequins.

I scanned my eyes over the campers. One was obviously a daughter of Aphrodite, but she didn't look so pretty with big black bruises decorating her freakishly-pale skin. Her eyes that were a breathtaking blue just a few hours ago were now dull and lifeless. She looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

I could recognize some of the other campers, even in the state they were in. Jack, from the Ares cabin, was in the third bed to the right. Quinn, a daughter of Demeter, was the first bed on the left.

Looking at the rest of the camper's faces, I recognized more and more of them. Kaylee, from Persephone. Aaron, from Hephaestus. Towards the back, there was someone lying on their stomach with their face in their pillow. I flipped them over, to see who it was, and let out an involuntary gasp.

Jill really does know how to surprise me.


	4. Fractional Equations

**HOWDY Y'ALL! Heh, just kidding. Well, chapter four! HERE IT IS! Woo-hoo! I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back(:**

**So, did anyone read The Lost Hero? Yes? No? Maybe so? If you did, tell me! This way we can have long and detailed discussions about it! Sounds exciting, eh?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or plot of PJO. **

**P.S. There isn't really a breakout of influenza in Greece. At least, I don't **_**think **_**there is…**

That's when things took a turn for the worse.

After getting out of there as quick as I possibly could, Chiron explained to me how everything happened.

The Gorgons had once faded, but since Medusa was so well-known in this era that they slowly began to reform. But still, after being dead for thousands of years, they were too weak to turn any unsuspecting victims into lovely stone decorations; but apparently the one that attacked us had enough power to petrify quite a few demigods.

Jill had been the first to see the creature, so therefore she was the first attacked.

"Well, I didn't hear any buzzing in my ears, so at least they're not dead." I suggested.

Chiron took this thoughtfully. "Yes, but we can't simply leave them in this state, and I'm afraid we do not know how to return them to normal."

"What about Apollo? Can't he come down and, well, fix them?" I asked. Couldn't he cure anything? I mean, he was the god of _healing – _he should be able to heal them.

"That's not an option. We can't rely on the gods to fix everything that goes wrong. Some things we need to do by ourselves. Apparently, this is one of them." Well, that's lame.

"The Apollo campers have tried to cure them, but nothing seems to work. They can't swallow the ambrosia or nectar, and none of their healing magic has any effect on them." He explained.

I couldn't possibly imagine who here could cure them if the Apollo kids couldn't. Possibly Hypnos? The God of Sleep? I was just about to recommend it to Chiron, but he seemed to read my mind.

"We've already tried Hypnos' children. Sleep is one thing; paralyzation is another." Darn.

I slumped down next to a tree, defeated. What if we never found a cure? What if Ji- er, all the kids were stuck like that forever? I pictured their still bodies lying in the same position for years, slowly aging as generation after generation of campers tried to solve the impossible mystery.

Chiron walked over to me and picked an apple off of the lowest hanging branch. He tossed it from hand to hand as he spoke to me.

"Look, Nico. I know that you ha-" he was cut off by a group of girls loudly making their way over.

A couple of giggling daughters of Hecate – with brightly colored hair and strange features – skipped past us, giggling and waving a thin twig through the air as if it were a fairy's wand. They gave us a quick wave, and then bounced up the stairs and into the infirmary. With a slam, the door shut behind them; but their laughs were still audible through the walls.

"What can they do to help?" I asked Chiron. A few daughters of Hecate would do nothing but make the situation worse, and before you know it we would have twelve petrified donkeys instead of campers and there would be an angry swarm of wasps buzzing around camp.

"They can control magic. As, uh," he struggled for the right word, "_silly_ as they may be, they are quite powerful, and their healing spells may be just what we need." Even though Chiron said it so confidently, I still found it hard to believe.

Soon the giggles died down and there was quiet talking. At first, I thought they were getting sidetracked and having a conversation, but then I realized their laughing had been replaced by the sisters performing a spell. Whispered chanting rang in my ears as loud as if it were being said through a bullhorn, and soon enough there was a flash of bright light and blue smoke began to sneak out from the cracks in the walls.

Chiron hurried foward and swung open the door, calling for the girls. They wobbled out, one by one, coughing and covering their noses. The tallest one, who had some ridiculous name like _Lime_ (it matched her bright green hair), came over to us. "I don't think it worked…"

Well, _obviously. _

Smoke poured out of the doorway now, and you could barely see the beds inside. I glared at the girls, even though they didn't seem to care. One of them was still laughing from the explosion.

"Well, that's alright. We can try something else. Thank you and your sisters for helping us, it was very kind of you girls." said Chiron with defeat in his voice. If the Apollo kids couldn't heal them, and Hecate's magic couldn't heal them, what could?

Lime had kept a straight face while talking to us, but once she walked away her and her sisters began to crack up. It boiled my blood that there were a dozen paralyzed campers lying helplessly in there, and they had the nerve to actually _laugh._

"And you're sure you couldn't get Apollo to come?" I asked for the last time. Chiron nodded solemnly.

"I'm afraid so. He's very busy in the summertime. Plus, influenza just broke out in Greece, and he's horribly occupied making sure his homeland doesn't turn into a repeat of the Black Plague." Explained the centaur.

"The Black Plague?" I asked, "What's that?" I figured it was one of those many things I didn't learn about, considering I could count the number of years I went to school on one hand.

"Eh, long story. But in the end everyone died, and Apollo is trying to prevent that from happening again."

Unsure of what to say, I muttered "Oh…"

Chiron, who seemed to be upset, told me to go back to my cabin, and that there was nothing else for me to do.

He managed to smile at me. "Don't worry about it." He had said, but I found that almost impossible to do.

**(an annoying line)**

That night at the bonfire, Chiron explained to the campers what had happened. He read off the names of the petrified campers; and with each name he read, he received a few cries from the camper's siblings and friends.

When he read out Jill's name, a younger sister of hers stood up and shouted, "No fair! She said she would teach me fractional equations after lunch tomorrow!" Some siblings let out a small laugh, while others chocked back a sob. The little girl sat down, with her arms crossed stubbornly; but even across the bonfire I could see the tears building up in her eyes, and I'm sure it wasn't because she was disappointed about not discovering the wonders of fractional equations.

I counted a dozen names called in total. Some from major cabins like Ares and Athena, but there were two or three from cabins like Hebe and Nyx.

The fire burned low that night, and after a while it eventually died. People got up, wiped their eyes, and walked back to their cabins. A few tried to sneak towards the infirmary, but Chiron and Mr. D had stopped them and sent them off to bed.

"I don't understand why you're in such a hurry to see them." said Dionysus, "They'll still be there tomorrow. In fact, they won't be going anywhere for a while!" he laughed at his own joke, but the kid he was talking to burst out into tears and ran back to some cabin.

"Crybaby…" muttered Mr. D, and walked back leisurely to the Big House, sipping his diet coke the whole time.

The camp was eerily quiet. Everybody had gone straight to bed, exhausted by how long the day seemed to be and all the bad news it brought with it. I was no exception. Once my head hit the pillow, I had passed out – leaving the harshness of reality behind just for a little while.

**(yet another annoying line)**

_Thump Thump Thump_

I was woken up too soon, by yet another annoying person pounding on my door. I mean, I know I'm popular and all, but can't they just leave me alone?

"Nico! Nico! Open the door! It's serious!" shouted a voice.

I made no effort to get up. Maybe if I ignored them, they would go away.

"I know you're awake in there! I'm no fool!" they shouted.

I sighed, and dragged myself out of bed and over to the door, swinging it open.

"_What?"_ I grumbled at the person through my teeth.

The person was actually Nate, someone you rarely saw around camp. Mostly because he spent more time sleeping than he did anything else, considering he was a child of Hypnos. That's really all those kids _did _do. On occasion, you would see one wandering around camp in their pajamas, but it was most likely because they were sleepwalking (which some of them tend to do). Nate, on the other hand, was almost never seen walking around camp – asleep or not.

"What could you possibly want at," I glanced at the clock in my room, "2:45 in the morning?" The tone of my voice was menacing, but he didn't seem to notice. In fact, he was almost jumping up and down. For a child of the god of sleep, he seemed awfully awake.

"Well, I was sleeping-" he started, but I cut him off.

"Wow, what a surprise." He ignored my comment, and continued talking.

"As I was saying, when I was sleeping I had this strange dream that there were three campers on a quest, searching for the cure to turn everyone back to normal." I didn't seem what was so strange about it; demigods had dreams like that all the time. "They were in the mountains, or was it the dessert? Maybe it was near the coast…?" he wondered aloud.

His eyes darted across the ground as he tried to remember. "The beach, the plains, was it the Grand Canyon? Or was it Mexico? Australia, maybe?"

I sighed. "Nate!"

"Wha-? Oh! Yeah! So anyways, they were in the forest! And one of them had blood on their face, and another had a limp!" he yelled, like it was the most delightful thing he could possibly imagine.

"Alright, we all knew this was gonna come down to a quest. And lots of people get injured during their quest. It's no big deal."

"No! But it was! It was really important!" he argued.

"Go tell Chiron. Now, if you'll excuse me I-"

"But you were one of the people!" he shouted before I had a chance to slam the door.

Me? Ha! I found that surprisingly hard to believe.

"What do you mean?" I demanded, but he just smiled.

"And guess what else!" he exclaimed. I waited for him to tell me, because I sure as Hades wasn't gonna guess.

"Jill was there too!"


	5. And So It Begins

**Wow. I think this is my least favorite chapter, ever. I hate it. I'm probably gonna end up deleting it and re-writing it, but I felt bad that I haven't updated in forever and I just worked with what I had :P So sorry if you hate it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJaTO, it's plotline, characters, or any of that stuff :P**

"What do you _mean _she was there?" I snapped. Without realizing it, I had grabbed his shoulders and was squeezing them tightly.

He grimaced, and I let go. "What I mean is that I saw her. She was there, right alongside you and some other kid. She was the one with the cut on her face." He explained like as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I swear to Hades, if you're messing wi-"

"Why on earth would I joke about something like this?" he interrupted.

I looked back at my bed and sighed, knowing I wouldn't be getting any more sleep that night. Then, I walked outside and faced Nate.

"Alright, listen up." I lowered my voice to a whisper, "Last time I checked, Jill was lying on a hospital bed completely paralyzed. If you're here telling me she's gonna get better, and she doesn't, you'll find yourself asleep for a very, _very _long time." A satisfactory smile tugged at my lips when I saw him gulp nervously. His eyes flickered towards his cabin, and I knew he was silently wondering if he could make a run for it. After a moment, he shook his head, and then continued,

"No, I'm positive it was her!" he shouted.

"Are you sure? There are tons of blondes at camp. After all, how many times have you seen her? Hades, I'm surprised you've seen her at all! I bet you just mistook her for some other girl." I tried to argue, but I knew it was pointless.

"Why won't you believe me? For the thousandth time, it was her!"

When he saw how unconvinced I looked, he put one hand up and the other on his heart, and said "Scout's honor." I rolled my eyes at how ridiculous it sounded, but I figured he wasn't one to lie about something this serious.

I sighed. Shutting the door behind me, I grabbed his arm and started walking away.

"Where are we going?" he asked. He nearly ran to catch up with my long strides, and his eyes darted around our surroundings nervously.

"The Big House," I said, "obviously."

**(I bet these line's annoy you, eh?)**

After all the rumors I've heard that Chiron wears his tail in curlers at night, I was slightly disappointed from the lack of feminine hair stylers.

He slowly paced around the room, while Nate and I sat in extremely comfortable chairs. It took all I had not to pass out right then and there; Chiron's hooves clomping made a strangely relaxing lullaby, and sitting next to Nate was like gulping warm milk and hearing a good ole' fashioned bedtime story.

I'm serious, not even Hercules would have made it out of there conscious.

"So," said Chiron, temporarily breaking me out of my trance. "What you're saying is a group of campers go out to find the cure, and somehow Jillian is with them?"

I shrugged, while Nate nodded eagerly. Unfortunately for him, Chiron looked just as convinced as I had felt.

"Child, are you sure this wasn't just a very realistic dream? It seems unlikely tha-"

"No!" for a smaller boy, his voice came out loud and strong. I guess he was tired of people telling him he was just dreaming. If it were me, I would've snapped 15 minutes ago. "I'm sure it was her!"

Chiron sighed. "Not to sound rude, my boy, but I've maybe seen you around camp five times. And I just can't help but wonder how you can be so sure this girl is Jill? Have you ever gotten a good look at her?"

The boy nodded slowly, blush flooding his cheeks.

Chiron still looked unconvinced. "How?" But Nate just mumbled something in response.

"Huh?" I asked. I was right next to him, and I couldn't even try to make out what he had said.

He mumbled again, this time a little louder. It sounded vaguely like "I biker", but I was fairly sure that wasn't the case.

"Excuse me?" asked Chiron politely.

"I like her!"

…

…

…

Now it was _me _who was blushing.

Nate?

Liked… _Jill?_

Just a crush, obviously. I mean, he was what? Ten? Eleven? But thinking back on it, he was about her age. Maybe 13. Children of Hypnos tend to be on the smaller side, considering they do literally nothing to promote their growth. No exercise, healthy eating habits, or anything for that matter.

But… Jill would never go for him. Right? I mean, he was _Nate_ for crying out loud! One time he walked into the dining pavilion with dinosaur pajamas on. If that didn't scream "weirdo", I don't know what did. (Then again, I'm one to talk…)

And she was _Jill. _

I didn't quite know why, but I was getting redder by the moment. I suddenly liked Nate a lot less, and had the urge to push him off his chair.

"Oh… I see." remarked Chiron. He was looking down to, as if this whole situation was just as embarrassing for him as it was for Nate and me.

The boy, who was at least 10 shades redder than me, looked away, embarrassed.

"Well!" Chiron fiddled with a tiny figurine, and then put it back on a shelf. "That clears things up. I would be a fool to not believe you." I thought he was over exaggerating things to make Nate feel better, but I wasn't complaining. I really hated hearing bad news at 3 in the morning.

Nate smiled at Chiron, but he was still blushing as if someone had just read his diary aloud.

"Alright, thank you. Now, I'm really tired. I think I'll just go back to my cabin and get some rest…" mumbled Nate. He pushed himself up out of his chair and walked towards the door.

I stood up, too. If I didn't have to be up at 3 am, I wasn't going to be. Hopefully I would be able to fall right back asleep once I made contact with my bed, and sleep peacefully until noon or so. I knew there was a one in a million chance that that would happen, but a guy can dream, right?

"Wait!" commanded Chiron. We both stopped in our tracks as the centaur trotted over to the door, cutting in front of Nate.

The child of Hypnos looked like this whole thing was much too exhausting for him, and he was about to pass out. He leaned against the door frame and his eyes were starting to droop.

"If you said Jill was in the quest," Chiron started, "then she must have been cured. Maybe we're missing something; some kind of evidence. We need to go down to the infirmary and check the campers again."

As much as I wanted to sneak away to my cabin and collapse on my bed, I knew I had no choice but to follow Chiron. He walked leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world (he technically does, considering he's immortal) while Nate and I dragged ourselves after him. It was a good thing the infirmary was just a few yards away from the Big House, or I'm sure Nate would've passed out along the way.

The camp was deathly quiet and still, and shadows loomed over the cabins ominously. Almost everything was covered by darkness, except the moon's light and a few lamps lit in the Apollo cabin. Since Apollo was the god of light, some of the younger campers were still terrified of the dark. Their cabin was illuminating those around it, and causing the tree's to cast eerie shadows against the ground.

A distant growl was heard from the woods, and I heard Nate gasp. Even though he was a demigod, he was never truly exposed to the demigod world. I doubt he had ever battled, much less _seen, _a monster. I guess he was so cushioned by the fairytales of his dreams that he wasn't used to how harsh the world can really be.

When we reached the infirmary, Chiron slowly eased the door open as if he was afraid to wake those inside. We walked in, his hooves clomping loudly against the wooden floors, and passed bed after bed. The campers looked terrifying in the night, and even as a son of Hades I was frightened. The moonlight shone on their faces, dramatizing their ghostly white skin and glassy eyes.

One of the bodies – er, _campers_ – had their arm extended with their hand reaching out, and it looked as if he was trying to grab us as we walked by. I could hear Nate's teeth chattering as we walked, which was understandable considering this was the first time he'd seen the campers in this state.

One of the beds looked strangely empty in the night. I racked my brain trying to think of who was lying there before, and I finally remembered it was a younger girl. I dismissed it, told myself it probably looked empty because she was so tiny, and continued walking.

Suddenly, Chiron stopped. He had reached Jill's bed, and had walked next to it. I really didn't want to see one of my only friend-ish people looking like a zombie for the second time that day, so I just cast my eyes down to the floor and counted the boards of wood.

_33, 34, 35… _I counted.

"Oh, my." said Chiron.

"What? What?" asked Nate curiously.

"It seems," he paused, "well, it seems…" he sighed.

"It seems, _what?" _I asked rudely, but he didn't seem to care. He just kept looking at her bed with his eyebrows scrunched together and his mouth frowned.

He looked up at me. "It seems she's gone."

Without realizing it, I pushed Nate out of my way (causing him to fall and shout out "Hey!" loudly) and made my way to her bed.

It was depressingly empty, with the sheets crumpled up in a pile at the foot of the bed. The pillow was lying on the floor, but there was still a slight body imprint on the mattress. I had a sudden fantasy that this whole thing was just a mistake, and she was really back in her cabin with all of her siblings.

Maybe she had just fallen into a really, really deep sleep, woken up here in confusion, and walked back to her own bed. Maybe tomorrow morning she would be at breakfast, eating buttered toast and eggs like usual. Maybe she would say "hi" and wave to me when I passed her during the day. Maybe I would even go to archery, just so I could tell her how crazy this whole situation was. Maybe she would laugh about it, and in a few years she would tell it at the campfire as a funny story.

Maybe I'm just deluding myself.

I ran my hands across the bed, hoping that maybe she really was there. Just invisible, or something. But, no such luck.

"Hey, Chiron!" called a voice from behind. Nate was pointing to the bed I was looking at earlier. "This one's empty too!"

He read the name tag at the foot of the bed that said which patient was staying there. "Isabelle Pizara," he said, "daughter of Athena."

The only two missing campers were both daughters of Athena.

Coincidence? I think not.

My life was really worthy for a soap opera. There are twists and turns, the plotline is constantly changing, and just when you think things are going back to normal, _BAM!, _someone gets attacked. Or dies. Or, in this case, goes missing.

Thank you, Jill, for providing more drama in this already packed life of mine.

Randomly, I had a flashback of last summer when I shadow-traveled to Hades. I remembered how Jill went off to find me while Percy and Annabeth just sat and waited, and I remembered how good that made me feel.

When I was missing, she went after me. So if she's missing, it's only right for me to do the same.

I silently vowed that if she really had disappeared, I would personally find her.

Considering I had been in Nate's dream, it was already decided that I would go on the quest. Now we just had to get it started. I had begun to think of strategies to locate her. We couldn't just put flyers up across the country, or put her picture on a milk carton. It was gonna be a bit more difficult than that.

Even though it wasn't said I would be the leader, I had started to think who I would bring. Not Percy and Annabeth; they weren't allowed to go on camp quests anymore since they had technically graduated. The other people didn't necessarily didn't need to be my friends; they just needed to be useful.

Chiron interrupted my thoughts, breaking the silence.

"Well, I think it's obvious." he stated. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. "Nate's dream has come true. A quest is in order."

**Review even though that chapter was horrid?**


	6. The Ominous Dreams of Johnny Depp

**So!**

**Although some "**_**Jillico**_**" (haha, I love that) fans have stuck together, I've gotten a few reviews about Nico and Hailey as a couple, which was really surprising and totally unexpected. That didn't even strike me as I introduced her. But whatever. I'm sure none of you care about this rambling.**

**One more thing: Your reviews are all hilarious. I seriously crack up at most of them (I'm very easy to amuse :P ). But seriously. I love you guys(: They totally make my day. Leave me some more funny ones and I'll love you forever!**

**ON WITH THE CHAPTER!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, except some Halloween candy! Yayy!**

Only 20 minutes afterwards, a large group of campers, still in their pajamas, were piled into Big House.

Some had dozed off in their chairs, while some were wide awake and chatting with their friends. Most of them just seemed infuriated that they were woken up at four in the morning just to sit on plastic chairs and wait for a centaur to talk to them.

We were discussing the topic everyone was interested in: who would go on the quest.

"I think _I _should go." said a familiar girl with bright green hair. I noticed quite a few campers roll their eyes, but she ignored them. "After all, I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve!" To prove her point, she flicked out her wrist and small flames burst out, flying towards the window.

"Zap! Zap!" she shouted, and the curtains promptly went on fire.

Without missing a beat, Percy had exterminated the flames and doused the fabric in a coat of cold water. He turned around and stared at her like _Are you insane? _(which I think she was)

I didn't know if she meant to set the curtains on fire or not, but either way she looked quite satisfied with her work.

"Lime!" exclaimed some campers, but she happily threw her head back and cackled like a real witch. I scooted my seat farther away from her, worried that the flames would come in my direction next.

While Chiron reprimanded the ambitious girl on when it's inappropriate to use her powers, kids continued to talk excitedly about who was going to go on the quest. If they succeeded and saved all those campers, they would be heroes when they came back. And everybody here wanted a little taste of fame.

"It has to be someone smart, like me, so they can figure out what the cure really is." said an older son of Athena.

"No," remarked a daughter of Apollo, "no matter how smart you are, I have a natural way of finding medicines. Healing simply runs in my blood. That's why _I _should go." She smiled victoriously, and the boy glared at her.

Meanwhile, the Stoll brothers were taking advantage on a sleepy camper. The poor kid had fallen asleep, and now Conner stood over him with a sharpie and decorated his face with a mustache, a unibrow, and various other interesting things.

"Someone really strong has to go, so they can kill all of the monsters!" said a son of Ares. His brother nodded in agreement, and they head bumped each other and laughed. Kiara, from the Aphrodite cabin, stared at them in disgust, and then continued complaining about how her loss of beauty sleep was going to cause bags under her eyes.

"Bags should be cute and helpful accessories, not ugly dark blemishes!" she said to her sister.

It took me a while to notice another familiar face sitting in the corner, playing with the beads on her necklace. Brown hair was piled up into a bun on the top of her head, and loose strands fell at random spots.

Bored and annoyed, I decided to walk over to her.

"Hi Hailey."

She looked up, and I noticed how puffy and red her eyes were. Dried tears made trails down her face, and she sniffed loudly.

"Oh, hi Nico." She looked back down, and I considered sneaking away before she started crying again, but I found myself sitting down beside her.

I guess she heard me take a seat, because right afterwards she looked over and smiled. "I bet you're going to make fun of me for crying, but it's just that Jill was my absolute best friend and when I heard she got sick I was devastated, but Jill's tough, ya know? So I thought to myself '_Hey, she'll get over it! She's Jill! She has to get over it!' _You know, one time she got a concussion and told Annabeth it was just a bad headache. Of course, when she started passing out they realized something was wrong, but still. She didn't even cry when I accidentally hit her in the head with my surf board! But she _did _punch me." She kept going on, and I decided it was better for her to babble than it would be for her to burst out crying. Plus, she was talking so fast I could barely understand what she was saying.

"So I went through the day, and I figured by tonight my siblings would've whipped up some magical remedy that could cure her and all the other kids. But then, _bam!" _She made an explosion with her hands, "Gone! She just disappeared! What if someone kidnapped her? What if she magically teleported into New York City and some really nice but totally freaky family found her and is gonna adopt her? What if she forgets about all of us? What if she forgets her name, and has to go around by something horrendous like… like… Uglajanice?" She looked at me, as if I knew all of the answers.

"Um… I'm sure she won't name herself Uglajanice." Unsure of what else to say, I just stayed quiet. Hailey sighed loudly, and leaned her head against the wall behind her.

She looked as if she was about to start rambling on again, but was interrupted by Chiron's entrance into the room. Lime followed him in, and sat at a chair with her arms crossed tightly against her chest and a pout on her face

"Campers," started Chiron, "I'm not in charge of this quest. It's you that will be the ones out there, not me. So, who here would be interested in going on this quest?"

A dozen _Me!_'s filled the room, and Chiron quickly had to quiet them.

"Alright, let me rephrase this." He said. Scratching his head, he looked deep in thought. "What kind of factors do you think are needed on this quest, to find the missing campers and the cure?"

"Strength!" shouted the sons of Ares.

"Beauty!" said a daughter of (guess who?) Aphrodite.

"Intelligence!" put in the son of Athena.

"Healing powers!" exclaimed the daughter of Apollo.

Chiron shushed everybody, and then began talking. "Alright, all of those could come in handy during this quest, but only three campers will go. First of all, we have to determine who will lead the quest."

At least twenty hands shot up eagerly. He looked over the campers, analyzing each one of us. "I can tell you right now, this is going to be a very difficult quest, and a lot pressure is going to be on your shoulders. There are twelve ill campers here, and if you don't find the cure, who knows what will happen to them?" A few hands lowered.

Chiron continued, "You will have to be fast with what you do, but also extremely careful. You will most-likely battle numerous monsters. The quest members and you may get injured. If someone does, it will be your responsibility to manage them. Will you need to send them back to camp? How much ambrosia and nectar should you give them? Or maybe you will need to take them to a mortal hospital? All these choices will be up to you." More hands were lowered.

"I'm not trying to scare you," He said, "but I have to make sure whoever accepts this quest is ready for it and everything that comes along with it." A few more hands were lowered.

Chiron smiled, happy that he was finally getting his message across; but it quickly returned to his worried frown.

He looked at the hands that were raised. The two sons of Ares, the son of Athena, Lime, and surprisingly, a daughter of Aphrodite.

"Well, Lime, your previous little performance has shown me that you are most defiantly not ready to lead a quest of your own." She glared at him, but put her hand down.

"Now, the rest of you would all be excellent leaders on this quest, and you each have something that you would be able to put in." the campers smiled, "But, there can only be one leader. So I'm going to send you all in one at a time, until Rachel speaks to one of you. Whoever she tells a prophecy to will obviously become the leader." He smiled, "Now, who wants to go first?"

The same hands stayed up.

"Alright, how about Anthony?" he suggested. A tall son of Ares stood up and rushed upstairs to where Rachel would be, probably horribly cranky that we woke her up at 4 o'clock in the morning.

And so we waited.

And waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

Finally, he stomped down the stairs with a scowl on his face and sat down.

"Well, I guess the Oracle didn't like _him_ very much…" joked one camper. He turned and glared at him.

"No prophecy?" asked Chiron. The boy shook his head slowly, as if it was a personal insult that he didn't receive the prophecy.

Chiron seemed upset too. "Alright, let's send in the next camper." He was about to pick on someone, but Anthony interrupted him.

"No use, she won't talk to any of them." He said. Campers looked at him, confused at his statement. She had to talk to _one _of them, or else there wouldn't be a quest leader at all.

"What do you mean?" asked Chiron. He looked just as confused as the rest of us. I assumed there was never before a case where the Oracle wouldn't give a prophecy to anyone.

"She talked to me, but she just kept repeating the same name. She said she would only talk to them."

"Who was it?" asked campers excitedly, hoping fate would be on their side and the Oracle was reserving a prophecy for them specially.

He looked at Chiron and glared.

"Nico di Angelo."

**(line-line-line)**

Since it was obvious Rachel didn't like hanging out in a creepy old attic, her and Annabeth had redesigned it to fit her personal needs. Considering she lived there, there was a bed, a bathroom, furniture, and even a mini-fridge.

Bright colors filled the room, and I stood out horribly in my black clothes.

Rachel sat on her bed, crossed legged in her splatter paint pajamas. Her orange hair was tightly pulled back into a ponytail, and she slouched lazily.

"It's such a shame that those poor girls had to go missing." I nodded, agreeing with her. "But after all, I knew it was coming." She stated.

"Really?" I asked, "Are you like, psychic or something?" I only realized how stupid it sounded after I said it, but she disregarded it.

"Nope. But I had a dream about Johnny Depp the other night." While she twisted a loose strand of her hair, I waited for her to continue.

When she didn't, I asked her how that was significant in any way, shape, or form.

"Oh! Silly me, I forgot to tell you. Every time I have a dream about Johnny Depp, something horrible happens." I looked at her like she was crazy, which I was starting to believe he was.

"You see, when I was five, I had a dream that Johnny Depp and I filmed a movie together. The next day, my poor pet hamster died. And then, when I was thirteen, I had a dream that he bought me an ice cream at Central Park. The week after that my best friend told me she was moving. To Utah!" She sighed, like the pain of visiting old memories was just overbearing.

"I'm sorry?"

She ignored me, and kept going. "When I was 15 I had a dream I went to the Willy Wonka chocolate factory. Of course, I pictured Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, because who doesn't? So I go downstairs to breakfast, where my housekeeper tells me she found my stash of candy in the china cabinet. And guess what she did to it? She threw it away! All that good candy, wasted!

"So anyways, the other night I had a dream I was going bowling with Jack Sparrow, and ta-da! Johnny Depp never fails to bring disappointing news to my life. Or maybe it's the other way around! Maybe life knows that something bad is going to happen, so to make up for it, I have a dream about the glorious and totally attractive movie star?"

Afraid she was going to go on, I had to stop her. "Uh, Rachel? I think you're supposed to be giving me a prophecy right about now." She opened her mouth, so I quickly blurted out "What is my prophecy?"

"Hey!" she said, mad that I purposely made sure she couldn't ramble on anymore. But seconds later her eyes turned an eerie green and she began to speak,

"_Wisdom shall be found in the Wolverine State,_

_Since a mother saved her daughters' fates._

_The heroes will find the missing and the cure,_

_But only death can open the door."_

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts and the green smoke that surrounded it.

"Alrighty then!" she said cheerfully. "My work here is done." And with that, she collapsed on her bed and gave me instructions to turn off the light on my way out.

When I got downstairs, everyone was eagerly waiting for me to repeat the prophecy. I knew there were still some important steps to take until we could leave, but knowing we would be heading off at breakfast, I just wanted to get back to my bed and get some rest.

I quickly repeated the short prophecy to the rest of the group, and waited for Chiron to give further instructions on what to do.

Time rushed by, and people discussed what the prophecy could mean.

"Wisdom could be an owl!" remarked one horribly stupid kid. "And maybe the wolverine could eat it!"

"No, you idiot!" said the son of Athena, "The Wolverine State is Michigan!"

"Wolverines are very strong and powerful, so maybe you'll find strength and power on the quest!"

"I think somebody's going to die! It says only death can open the door!"

"Death _obviously _refers to Nico, duh."

"Well I think the mother is Hera. Maybe she'll help them!"

They continued to argue and shout out ideas and questions for quite some time, while Chiron told me to think about who I would want to go on the quest with me.

I decided to take Hailey, considering she's close with Jill, she has healing powers (a major plus), and, well, I don't have many friends.

She, of course, accepted and ran off excitedly to go pack her bags.

But there was still one more person to go with, and I really had no clue who to pick. Percy and Annabeth were out of the question, considering they were going to college in 2 months and didn't want to spend their last summer on some life threatening quest. The Ares kids were the most obnoxious people I've ever met, and I refused to go with them. I didn't need two children of Apollo, and I _defiantly _didn't need a daughter of Aphrodite. I wasn't taking that weirdo Lime with me, nor would I take any of her sisters. Children of Athena were generally irritating know-it-alls, and a child of Hephaestus wouldn't do me any good to help find two missing girls and some medicine.

_Stupid boy…_

I turned around, wondering who had said that. But nobody was there besides Chiron, and the voice was distinctly female.

_Don't you know what most medicines are made out of?_

I looked to my left and then to my right, searching for any freaky girls talking to me, but there was no one.

"Who's there?" I asked, but it came out quiet and nervous. I cleared my throat, and tried again. "Why are you asking me that?"

A few people looked over, confused as to whom I was talking to, but I waved them off and they turned back around.

_Don't you know what medicines are made of?_

"No?"

_What an idiot… What _does _that girl of mine see in him?_

"What girl?" I asked.

_Do you know what ginger is?_

"Uh, of course I do."

_Don't be fresh! Now, do you know what ginger _does?

"Helps your stomachache…?" I asked. I had no clue where all these random questions were coming from. Maybe it was just a figment of my imagination, asking me pointless questions because I was tired. Next thing I know, maybe there'll be a giraffe in the corner playing the accordion.

_Exactly. It's a medicine. And you could call ginger a…_

"…Plant?"

There was no response. A plant? What does a plant have to do with any of this?

It took me a minute to realize just how stupid I was.

Plants, medicine, cures; it was all starting to make sense.

"I need a daughter of Demeter!" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

The campers stared back at me, most likely horribly confused by my sudden outburst.

Dozens of eyes caused heat to flood up in my face, and I could feel the blush forming.

Finally, just as I was about to die of embarrassment, a kid about my age stood up.

"Well, I'm technically not a girl," he said, "but if you're still interested, count me in!"

And so it was settled.

A son of Hades, a son of Demeter, and a daughter of Apollo.

Oh, joyous.


	7. Vicious Vines and Kidnappings

**LOOK HOW QUICK I UPDATED! WOOHOO! I deserve a prize, no?**

**So! Eac12897 suggested the name "Riley" and I lovvveddd it! So he shall be named RILEY! That will be all. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything (I'm getting so tired of saying this :P)**

By the time I got back to my cabin, all I wanted to do was fall into a deep sleep and remain that way for the rest of my life.

And yet, I knew there were more important things than my sleeping patterns, so I fought the urge to collapse on my bed and instead rummaged through my draws and pockets, searching desperately for a golden coin.

Finally, my hands grasped the cool, shiny item and I walked outside, heading towards the Poseidon cabin.

Percy had stayed after the meeting to discuss something with Chiron and help clean up. I was hoping that meant he would be there for a while, which would mean he _wouldn't _be interrupting me using his fancy little pond thing. (Which was a totally unfair gift. I get the ability to hear when someone's dying, but he gets to have an unlimited supply of free Iris Messages? Nu-uh, no fair)

Normally he wouldn't care if I used it without asking, but lately I've had a tendency to break various items of his, and now he won't let me touch anything that has any significance to him.

I slowly crept into his cabin, just in case he had already come back and was sleeping. But the beds were empty and I safely made my way over to the small waterfall.

"O Goddess, accept my offering."

Unsure of what to do, I just threw my drachma into the water. It had hit the surface, but disappeared immediately afterwards.

"Show me Hades, Lord of the Underworld."

At first, nothing happened.

I waited, and waited, and waited. But the room remained dark, and there was no change.

Disappointed and embarrassed, I turned to make my way back to my cabin.

_It was a stupid idea anyway, _I told myself.

Like a god would answer my call.

But, before I could even take a step towards the door, I heard a voice ring out.

"Well? You send me an Iris Message and then just walk away? Don't waste my time, boy." Turning around, I saw my father proudly sitting at his throne.

I barely resisted a smile from popping up on my face, and walked back over towards him.

He looked the same as ever, which wasn't that much of a surprise considering he was immortal and never aged. Faces swarmed around and mixed together on his dark cloak, which had a frightening chill to it.

"Father," I said, "I have a question for you."

He looked almost… _amused. _

"I don't have time to waste on your foolish questions," he said. I felt my face drop. So, he would answer my message but not answer my question? That seemed hardly fair (and a horrible way to waste a drachma). Maybe he felt bad for me, or maybe he was bored, because he decided to add in "so make it quick!"

"You know all the names of those who have passed, right?" I asked. He nodded.

"Don't be foolish, of course I do."

"Well, has there been a recent death of an, um, Jillian Mistero?"

"Jillian Mistero… Blonde? Grey-eyed? Daughter of that wretched Athena?" I nodded my head, "That girl you love?"

"Ye- What? No! I don't love her!"

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't be foolish, of course you do."

I had the sudden urge to shout out "Nu-uh!", but that would be immature and stupid, which are two things you shouldn't be around the Lord of Death.

So, I just settled for "No I don't."

"Preposterous! Let me tell you, if you lived 3000 years ago, when things actually made sense, you two would already be married with a baby on the way!"

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure at that moment I had a heart attack.

"A baby!" I managed to get out.

He looked confused at my expression. "Yes, what's so surprising about that?"

"Uh, everything?"

He shook his head, a slight smile playing at his lips. It infuriated me. "I don't love her! I don't even like her!"

He sighed. "Deny it all you want, but that doesn't make it untrue. Now, about that girl of yours-

"She's not that girl of mine; she's just that girl."

He completely ignored my comment, and continued talking, "- the answer is no, she's not in my realm."

Relief flooded through me. "Thank you, father." So she was missing and possibly paralyzed or with a bad case of amnesia, but at least she wasn't dead. But _I _would be if I didn't get out of the Poseidon cabin before Percy came back. "Now, I have to go before Percy c-"

"Wait," he said, "there's one more thing. You need to be very careful on this quest; tricks are hidden around every corner. And this time you will not have two daughters of Athena to guide you. If you're not careful, one of your friends will be taking a visit to the Underworld very soon."

I gulped nervously at his ominous advice. "Alright, sure. I'll be careful. I promise." And with that, I swiped my hand through the mist, ending the conversation.

**(this is a pretty nice line, eh?)**

Waking up the next morning, I started to reconsider the whole quest thing.

Maybe I should just stay in bed, and hope they won't notice I'm missing until they're far, far away.

Of course, I don't think that would happen considering I was the leader of the quest and they couldn't leave without me.

But unfortunately, we all know how rare it is for me to actually get a decent night's sleep.

So just as the blinking red letters of my alarm clock flashed "6:30", I was torn out of bed by an overexcited daughter of Athena.

"Come on! You should be ecstatic! Leading your first quest, how exciting!" gushed Annabeth as she randomly threw items of clothing into my backpack. I groaned, wondering how anybody could be so awake when the sun had barely risen.

When I asked her, she just replied "The early bird catches the worm."

Well guess what? I'm not a bird and I don't want any damn worms.

"You just have to make sure you stay safe, and make sure to manage your money! There's nothing worse than going to order a cheeseburger and then realizing you only have ten cents. Believe me, I know from experience. And be careful around strangers, and… and…"

"Annabeth!"

"What?" she momentarily stopped throwing random things into my bag long enough to look at me.

"I really don't think I need a winter coat…"

Confused, she looked down in my backpack and then took out the big parka that she most recently packed. "Oh… yeah… Sorry."

I sighed, knowing something was wrong. "What's up, Annabeth? You're not acting, well, normal."

"I know, I know. But these are my baby sisters! They were kidnapped! Stolen! Gods, Jill's only 15! And Isabella is 9!"

"Uh, when you were fifteen hadn't you gone on three quests and put your life in danger dozens of times?"

She gaped at me. "That's totally different!"

It totally wasn't.

"It'll be fine, Annabeth. I'm not a little kid, I can take care of myself and so can she. I'm sure Jill will look out for Elizabella."

She glared at me. "It's _Isabella!_ And how can you be so sure? What if they're hurt? What if they're still paralyzed? Gods, what's gonna happen to them!"

"Nothing. Nothing will happen to them, because we're gonna find them and bring them back before anything does." I really had no idea if we were, but lying to her seemed like a much better idea than dealing with a paranoid older sister.

"You promise you'll bring them back to camp safely?" she asked. Her eyes were wide, and she resembled a little girl asking her mother for a new toy.

I sighed. Promising always made things more difficult. But, I felt obliged. "Yes, Annabeth. I promise to bring them back safely."

Content with this, she wished me good luck and then slipped out of my cabin.

I sighed, dreading how much more work she just provided for me. I unpacked the backpack, put the dozen pairs of socks, the boomerang, the beach towel, the pajamas Annabeth got me for my birthday (thanks Annabeth, because I really want blue plaid pajamas to match those green slippers you got me for Christmas) and the candy I bought from the Hermes cabin back into my draws.

I re-packed (much lighter this time) and then ran out of the door, realizing just how late I was.

When I reached Half-Blood Hill, Chiron, Hailey, and Riley (which I had learned was the name of the Demeter boy) were already waiting there.

"Way to be 20 minutes late, Nico." commented Hailey, but it wasn't said angrily. She was dressed in normal clothes, as oppose to the orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Denim shorts and a shirt for some band I didn't recognize seemed pretty normal to me; but since I was very uneducated on the modern pop culture, I couldn't be sure.

Riley was dressed the same. Shorts and a plain t-shirt. Getting a look at him when it wasn't four in the morning, I noticed had very Demeter-ish looks – shaggy brown hair and tanned skin, from spending all day working in the strawberry fields.

"Sorry, I was talking to Annabeth. She's just worried about her sisters." I explained. They nodded, showing they understood.

Considering I was so late, the money and drachmas had already been given out, the goodbyes had been said, and the van had been packed. All they were waiting for was me.

Getting into the camp vans, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu from last summer.

As we drove off, Argus tried to start casual conversation. But unfortunately, he failed miserably. It was extremely awkward and quite boring.

I watched as we left the rural land and headed into the suburbs. We passed tons of little kids outside, enjoying the hot summer weather and playing in the sprinklers. Some families were outside setting up for a party or some event. We even passed a block party, and I became extremely jealous that while we were going to be risking our lives and trying to find some cure to and two missing girls, there were people who would be barbequing and going swimming in their heated pools. So not fair.

Ah, but I guess being this good-looking and all-in-all amazing comes with a price to pay.

After a little while, Hailey started mumbling some song about vines and flowers. Then, Riley added in with light whispering that I couldn't decipher. Something in ancient Greek, or maybe Latin. Maybe it was a song too?

But soon enough, I heard shuffling from below me. Looking down, I saw vines bursting from under the mat on the car floor. Thick, green, and powerful, they grew at a rapid rate and quickly wrapped around my feet.

"Holy -! What are you doing!" I exclaimed. More vines erupted from the ground and wove themselves up my legs.

Riley stopped whispering. "Wha- Oh! Sorry! Sometimes they get a little excited." He snapped his fingers, "Hey! Get down!"

The plants had a striking resemblance to a group of dogs disciplined by their leader, as they hung down and slowly slid back under the mats. If they could whimper, I'm sure they would've. I turned and glared at Riley, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Why did you do that?" I asked him. What would possibly possess him to do something as stupid as to grow vicious vines in the camp van?

"Hey, it's her fault! She was singing about plants, and I went into auto drive!" he defended himself. Hailey, who looked sheepish, apologized and then decided the best way to spend the trip to New York City (and change the topic) was to tell stories about the girls we were going to find.

"So this one time," she started, "when we were eleven, I decided it would be a good idea to get back at the Stolls for pranking the Apollo cabin."

"What'd they do?" asked Riley.

"They filled all of our instruments with peanut butter. Peanut butter! It took us _weeks _to get it out of the flutes. And the tuba? Ha! Ruined! Anyways, the rest of the cabin wouldn't help me. So who did I go to? Jill, of course. Unfortunately, she said it was a stupid idea. She totally refused to help me! You wouldn't _believe_ how mad I was at her. I mean, my best friend was just abandoning me? Nu-uh, no way. Not gonna happen."

"What'd you do?"

"Well, that's where things start to get good. Furiated, I snuck into her cabin in the dead of night. I grabbed her, ran her out of the Athena cabin, and tied her to a chair."

"You kidnapped her and tied her to a chair!"

"Shut up! I'm telling a story! But, yes, yes I did. So anyways, just as I was about to lecture her on what being a good friend was-"

"Wait," I said, "you were going to tell her that she wasn't being a good friend, when you had just kidnapped her and tied her to a chair…?"

"Yeah, it was kinda a spur of the moment thing. So, as I was saying before Nico oh so _rudely _interrupted me, just as I was about to yell at her, I saw that she was crying. Crying! And this was Jill. Confused, I took a closer examination of her. And it totally wasn't Jill."

"You kidnapped the wrong girl!"

"Shut up! I was eleven and it was dark! Plus, they all look the same! It's just plain freaky! So, this girl was sobbing and begging me to let her go and not to hurt her. But if I let her go, she would tell everybody! How embarrassing would that be? I couldn't possibly live with that kind of humiliation!"

"So what did you do?"

"Simple. I gave her twenty dollars and told her it was our little secret."

Silence.

Riley and I just stared at her.

"Wow. I kinda wish I had chosen that creepy daughter of Hecate to come instead of you…" I said.

"Hey! She would've turned you into a toad by now!" I would've argued with her, but I knew it was true.

We continued telling stories about the missing girls (more like _girl, _considering none of us had even seen Isabella before) for the rest of the car ride. I even got to talk about Billy the pedophile from the previous summer.

"So there we were, an angry son of Ares to my left, Jill to my right, my blind grandma in front of us, and three water nymphs behind us. So my grandma shouts out 'Hailey, w-'"

Argus turned around and pointed to the doors. We had reached the city, and he couldn't take us any farther.

Sighing, we all thanked him, and slid out of the van one by one.

He waved to us (exposing the eye on the palm of his hand) and then drove off, leaving us on the sidewalks of a busy New York street.

Commuters in suits and ties shoved past us, talking quickly on their cell phones. People were waving over taxis, going down to the subway, and boarding trains in every direction. Other teenagers walked past us, sipping iced coffees and talking to their friends. Some stared at us, most likely wondering why we were just standing at the side of the road.

As the bus disappeared from our view, Hailey asked what we were all thinking.

"Well, what now?"

**Review because you love me and I updated really quick?**


	8. The Amazing Historical Train

**Woohoo! WhEnAlLhOpEsFaLlS was my 200****th**** reviewer! Yay for her!**

**Anyways, as for the reason this hasn't been updated in 3 weeks *bows head in shame* I was really busy. I know, that's like the lamest excuse ever. But with all the tests, projects, quizzes, holidays, etc. things got pretty hectic. Plus, this is the 3****rd**** time I wrote this chapter :P The first 2 times came out horrendous.**

**Okay, that's all I have to say. On with the story!**

**Disclaimer: This is so annoying. I don't own anything.**

I thought we should've just stol- er, _borrowed_ someone's car.

But of course they disagreed, because apparently that was "morally wrong" and "illegal" and a bunch of other things I didn't really care about. So despite my protests on how it was a waste of time and money, they insisted on calling over a taxi.

Unfortunately, we learned very quickly that no NYC taxi driver was gonna stop for a few kids at 8 am when there were hundreds of more reliable workers.

So instead, we decided to do things the old fashioned way and get on a train.

Now, although walking to the train station, buying a ticket, and finding a seat was all very exciting, I'm not going to bore you with the details.

So anyways, we were standing around, waiting for the train to come (which was really difficult for a couple of ADHD kids to do). There were a few tourists snapping pictures of each other and giggling, a man talking on his phone in some foreign language, and an old lady with her granddaughter on the other benches.

"Oh, look Deborah! Those kids are your age!" said the lady. She was in a floral sundress, with a big floppy hat. Orthopedic shoes were looking pretty stylish on her feet.

"That's nice, grandma." answered her granddaughter. Her thumbs were flying across the keyboard of her phone, and when her grandmother looked away she rolled her eyes.

"Sweetie, don't be shy! You should go sit with them." She nudged her granddaughter's shoulder, pushing her in our direction.

"That's alright. I prefer sitting here with someone I actually know." She continued texting, but the woman looked disappointed.

"Don't be silly! I don't want to spoil your teenage fun!"

"Grandma, really, it's alright." she said, but there apparently her grandmother's mind had already been set.

The little old lady looked over in our direction, and Riley and I quickly averted our eyes. "Excuse me, young lady?" she called out. We nudged Hailey, but she looked deep in thought. "You there, in the green shirt." Riley elbowed her, and she finally looked up.

We pointed to the lady, and she blushed. "Uh… yes?"

"Grandmaaa!" complained Deborah, but her grandmother ignored her.

"Oh, hush up Debbie. Now, my granddaughter was just telling me how much she wanted to sit with you all."

"Grandma!" she shouted.

"Her name is Deborah. She's very sweet, loving, funny, and pretty." Deborah's face was starting to resemble a tomato.

"Uhm… alright?" said Riley.

"Hear that Debbie? They invited you to sit with them!"

Debbie groaned. "For the thousandth time, I don't wan-"A man's hat suddenly flew off of his head, and a few people lost their newspapers as wind gusted up. "Oh look! The train's here!"

Grabbing her grandmother's frail old hand, she yanked her up and dragged her outside to board the train.

Figuring it was what we were supposed to do, we just followed them out onto the boarding area. The train continued to fly by us, until it finally came to a screeching stop. Expecting to see one of those new high-tech speed trains, I was temporarily disappointed to see one of those ugly old fashioned ones. The outer paint was chipped and rusted, and judging by the loud screech the wheels had made, I was slightly scared of the actual train's condition.

With all the people carrying huge bags of luggage, I felt out of place with just my backpack. One girl dragged a trunk behind her, while countless bags of designer luggage hung off of her arms. For such a tiny girl, I gave her credit for her determination.

"The 10:45 train to Ohio is now boarding!" announced the speakers loudly. Passengers immediately stood up and rushed into the open doors, eager to start their journey.

Quietly following the other passengers, we found a group of seats that could fit us all, and threw our backpacks onto the shelf above.

Considering none of us really knew each other, we remained silent.

I was hoping I could spend the long ride storing up on some sleep that I'll most likely need later on, but that idea was quickly squashed when one of the attendants hooked up a microphone.

"Hello, passengers!" she said cheerily. A smile was plastered onto her face, and her hair was perfectly in place. She was wearing the same blue uniform as the rest of the crew, along with the mandatory makeup. "I'm sure you're all very excited to take this journey. Not only physically, but also historically!"

…Historically?

The smile stayed on her face as she talked. "Now, this train is one of the oldest running trains in America! It's been going since 1896, and was only renovated twice! How exciting!" she gushed. I didn't see how exciting a 100 year old train was, but if I was lucky her droning would lull me into a sleep.

I closed my eyes and shifted until I found a comfortable position.

"Originally owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, this very train has transported lumber, grain, and industrial supplies for-" her voice was cut off. "Young man, are you listening?" I could hear her heels clicking as she walked down the aisle way. Feeling sorry for the poor sucker that was about to be yelled at, I didn't even notice the shadow that was casted over me.

"Young man," the voice had suddenly gotten a lot closer, and a lot less cheery. "you will look at me when I am talking to you, do you understand?" The strong scent of breath mints flooded over me. Slowly creeping one eye open, I saw a pair of grey eyes staring back at me.

Hailey, who was sitting next to me, looked concerned. While Riley, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to hold back laughter.

The woman glared at me. "I expect this will not happen again."

While she was petite and had a pretty face, her eyes were so intimidating that I could barely find the strength to nod my head. But once I did, she stood up straight, and the smile popped back onto her face. "Good." She let out a light laugh, and then walked back over to the microphone.

"And in 1902, the famous actress Mary-Ann Keltra rode on this train, on her way to-" she continued going on about the history of the train, and the other passengers looked sincerely interested. Riley decided then would be a good time to let out his laughter quietly.

"Is Nico scared?" he taunted, "Did the little lady scare Nico the Great?" Hailey kicked him in the knee. "Ow! What was that for?" he complained, rubbing his knee.

"That was for acting like a 7 year old and teasing our quest leader!" she yelled back at him. I didn't understand I wasn't allowed to rest without some lady yelling at me, but they were allowed to argue loudly without a single complaint.

Why do attractive people always get picked on?

Soon, the still scenery outside the window began to move, and we set off on our trip. Too lazy to make my way to the sleeping cart, I put my hood over my eyes and let the oh-so-fascinating history lesson act as a lullaby and put me to sleep.

**(what a pretty line this is, huh?)**

"Nico…" someone whispered. They shook my shoulder.

In an attempt to get them to leave me alone, I turned over and readjusted myself.

"Nico." they said again, this time a little louder. They continued to shake my shoulder, and I tried my very best to ignore them. Judging by the feminine voice, I assumed it was Hailey.

"Go away…" I managed to mumble. A sharp slap hit my arm. "Ow!" I complained.

"This is no time for your foolish mortal laziness!" Listening closer to the voice, I realized it was too matured to be Hailey's. I rubbed my aching arm, wondering where I had heard that voice before.

"Why don't you understand! Get up!" Was it Annabeth?

Something heavy was dropped on my stomach, and I immediately sat up, prepared to yell at whoever was disturbing my precious rest. But by the time I looked around, there was no one there.

"Hello?" I called out.

Scanning the room, I saw Hailey had fallen asleep sprawled across the seat, which explained why Riley was squished against the window. If there hadn't been an armrest holding me back, I would've been pushed into the aisle.

"Helloooo?" I said again. Somebody from another seat shushed me, and I sat back down. Unfortunately for me, I sat down on something hard and pointy. Swearing quietly, I reached down to throw the item across the train and get back to sleep. But instead of picking up a piece of glass or a spare knife, my hands picked up a book. Not just a book, but a children's book. The cover was decorated with a small duckling in a pond, and just holding it made me embarrassed.

Once I put the book in my backpack, I sat back down. Horribly confused about what had just happened, I strained to think of why the voice was familiar. Had it been someone I used to know? Someone I still know? Someone I don't know at all?

For a few minutes, I closed my eyes and scanned every memory I could remember, trying to find the voice. I thought of teachers, campers, friends, everyone. And still, I couldn't figure out when I had heard that voice before.

I was just dozing off when I figured it out.

It was the same voice I had heard when I had been picked for the quest.


	9. Magical Flowers and Bacon

**Woo! 11 pages! This chapter's kinda rushed, but I had to finish it so I could study for my social studies test tomorrow, so here it is. Tada! **

**By the way, whatyouwishyouknewbutdont, people said "bacon" in here 5 times. Your welcome, haha(:**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Believe me. **

Determined to find whoever the voice belonged to, I searched the whole train.

Twice.

And yet, the only other passengers on the train were those sleeping in their seats, watching a movie on their obnoxiously bright portable DVD players, or furiously typing away on their computers.

No strange women wondering around, telling people to wake up or asking them stupid questions about plants (although, that part was a _bit_ helpful…)

By the time I made it back to my seat, the sun had begun to rise. Normally I wouldn't mind (one of my greatest talents is the ability to fall asleep in any environment), but I seemed to have forgotten the small detail that all children of Apollo tend to wake up at sunrise – including the one I brought on this quest with me.

When I first got back, she was still sound asleep. Trying my best to stay quiet, I slowly sat down and put my head back, checking on her every few seconds to assure she was still sleeping. Finally, I was in a comfortable position, and the sun was fully up.

Yay.

Closing my eyes, I looked forward to some sleep. But as we all know by now, there's some mystical force that's trying to keeping me from actually getting some rest. Not a minute had passed before I heard movement beside me. To my horror, I saw Hailey started to stir in her seat. Before I could think of something that would get her from waking up, she sat up, stretched her arms, and smiled when she saw me.

"Oh good! You're awake! I was worried I was going to have to sit here for hours and wait for you guys! Phew, that's a relief. Good to know you're an early riser. I mean, up before a child of Apollo? That's pretty impressive."

"Uh, I was actually just about to go back to sleep. So…" I said, hoping she would let me.

The smile was quickly replaced with a frown. "Oh! Yeah, I get it. Not all of us are early birds…. That's alright. I'll just wait for Riley to wake up… I mean, I'm used to being the only person awake for hours. It's totally cool."

Good to know she understands.

I put my head back and started trying to go to sleep, relieved that I would actually get some.

"You know, Jill's an early riser."

I opened my eyes. "Okay?"

"Well, sometimes."

"…"

"This one time, she slept until _11 o'clock. _Eleven!" she exclaimed, as if she had just said her grandma had robbed a grocery store. "Can you believe that?"

"Uh... yes?"

"That's like… five hours of perfectly good time wasted! Just, wasted! Gone!" by now, she had turned her body so she was facing me.

"Oh my gosh, _five hours?" _I said sarcastically. She obviously didn't pick up on it.

"Yes! A whole morning!" She reached into her backpack, pulling out food. "Hey, you want a granola bar?"

"No thanks."

"Eh, your loss." She opened hers and shoved half of it in her mouth, striking a resemblance to a chipmunk with acorns stored in their cheeks.

"You know, it's hard staying in touch with her. We live so far apart that I never get to see her!"

Remembering Jill lived in New York, I wondered where Hailey was from.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"California, duh. It's like, the sunniest place in America." She took another bite of her granola bar, and I took advantage of the time it took her to chew by trying to fall asleep. But unfortunately, she was quicker than I was.

"It's really cool seeing her over the summer, but I feel like we never talk! You know?"

"Oh, definitely."

"And then when we're together, we spend like 2 weeks filling each other in on everything that we missed! Like, what a waste of time!"

"Mhm, of course."

"Oh, but it's the absolute _worst _when camp's over. She doesn't really cry, but I know once she gets home she sobs for hours in her room. I just know! Call it best friend intuition."

"I'm sure she does."

"Totally." She took another large bite of her granola bar. "And when we find her, she's totally gonna owe me. I'm gonna force her to be my personal slave for a week, and she won't be able to do anything about it! So, ha!"

"Yeah, sure."

"Like this one time, I had this really good idea to climb up a tree during Capture the Flag and when someone came by, I would jump down and attack them! But once I got up there, I realized that if I jumped down, I would most likely break my own neck and completely miss the enemy! So, I clung onto a tree branch for like, twenty minutes until Jill had the common sense to come over and see if I had killed myself yet. So I was all excited that she was gonna help me, and then out of nowhere she told me she would only help if I cleaned off her bed and study area for two weeks. Two weeks! Can you believe that?"

"That's really… cruel?"

"Yes! It was! But I was helpless, so I was forced to do so. I have never seen so many mathematical equations in my life. I mean, who does homework over the summer? Jill. That's who."

"Oh, I'm sorry…"

"That's alright. No use living in the past." I found this incredibly ironic, considering all she had talked about for the past 2 days was old memories.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, you wanted to go back to sleep and here I am rambling. Go ahead, go to sleep. I'll wait for Riley to wake up."

_Finally._

But unfortunately, she wasn't done with me yet.

"Pssttt… Nico? Are you sleeping?"she whispered a few minutes later.

"No."

"Do you want breakfast?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I'm gonna go get some breakfast…."

"I thought you already had breakfast?"

"That? Gosh no! That was just a granola bar, stupid. I need some real breakfast."

"Okay, you can leave now." I told her, being pretty rude but not caring.

"Psst… Riley? Wake up!" I heard her whisper.

He made some weird mumbling noises.

"I'm sorry, what was that Riley?"

He repeated it, slightly louder this time.

"I still didn't hear you."

"Go. Away." This time he was loud and clear.

"Fine, no bacon for you!" she shouted, sounding personally offended.

He sat up. "Bacon?"

"Yes, bacon."

"Can you bring me some?" he sounded quite excited.

"No."

"Why not?" he whined, resembling a small child.

"Because you were mean to me, and I don't give bacon to mean people." She said, also sounding like a little kid.

"I'm really sorry, Hailey. I was just grouchy and tired. Please get me some bacon."

She sighed, considering this. "Fine, but only because you said 'please'."

With that, she stood up and skipped off to who knows where.

A few minutes later, she came back crunching on some extra crispy bacon. "Here ya go, Riley." She threw a couple of pieces at him, and he happily scooped them up and took a big bite out of one of them.

She turned to me, "Oh, and I knew you would secretly be upset if I didn't get you any, so I did." Handing me a few pieces, she went to sit back down but stopped suddenly.

"Huh? What's this?"

"What?" asked Riley.

"It's a book. Some little kid must have dropped it here."

My eyes widened. "Oh, that's mine."

"…Uh, I know you must be a little behind in school, and dyslexia makes reading hard, but really? _'Ducky's Adventures! and Other Stories'_? I had this when I was just learning to read…"

"No, uh…" I wondered what to say. Hearing voices in your head telling you to do things isn't exactly normal. "Some lady gave it to me. She said to read it to, uh, lighten my day?"

Hailey didn't look convinced, but she didn't protest. "Okay then." She tossed me the book. "Did you, uh, start it yet?"

"Nope."

"Well, I suggest the one about the magical flower." Piped in Riley through a mouthful of bacon.

"The magical flower? Isn't that a bit… girly?" asked Hailey.

"There is nothing girly about flowers! They're dirty, and bugs crawl in them… and, and," Hailey and I stared at him. "Flowers are manly!"

"Of course they are, Riley."

"Shut up. Well, the story's still good. It's about a magical flower," I snickered, "Shut up already! Anyway, a little girl finds the magical flower," I laugh again, "Fine! You read it yourself!"

"Hm, I think I will."

Opening the book, I saw colorful illustrations probably took up about 90% of the book, which relieved me. Even if it was meant for five year olds, reading was reading. I flipped through the pages until I came across a picture of a purple glowing flower. I stared at the title, watching the letters come together in my head, until I saw I read:

_The Magical Flower_

Praising the author for their creative title, I flipped to the next page where the story began.

I bet it took me longer to read the short tale than it would a four year old learning to read, but I didn't care. The story was boring and totally girly despite what Riley had said, and I couldn't understand what the point of it was.

_There one was a little girl who loved nature. Her name was Emily, and Emily lived in a magical land with fairies, unicorns, and many other mystical creatures that became the little girl's friends! One day, Emily was walking through her garden when she came across a beautiful flower. The flower was so pretty, it seemed to glow and lit up the whole garden! The little girl decided she would pick the flower and give it to her mother, who was feeling sick. Her mother smiled when she saw the flower, and Emily put it in a vase next to her mother's bed. Her mother smelled the flower's beautiful scent, and suddenly she sat up and smiled. Her pale face turned back to its normal color, her green eyes looked brighter, and she looked much happier._

"_What happened, mother?" asked Emily. Her mother smiled, and picked up the flower._

"_It's the flower! The flower healed me! Oh, thank you so much Emily."_

_Emily smiled now, and went back outside to the garden. The flower was magic! It healed her mother! She looked where she found the flower, but there were no others like it! But Emily didn't mind. The flower had helped her, and she didn't need it anymore. But from that day on, her favorite flower was always the magical healing flower that had helped her mother._

_The end._

I closed the book and stared at Riley. "What?" he asked. By now he was long done with his bacon, and was licking the excess grease off of his fingers.

"That story was _horrible. _What were you talking about?"

"I don't know… I think stories about death and murderous spirits are lame and overdone, but I'm sure you would think otherwise!"

"That stuff's actually interesting, but a magical flower? Really?"

"That's interesting too! I mean, what if we found a magical flower that could heal all of those campers? What then? Well, for one thing, you would owe me an apology. And you would have to kiss my feet and admit Demeter is ten times better than Hades will ever be."

"Well I hope you have fun with your little fantasy, because magical flowers don't exist."

"That's not entirely true! There are tons of stories about flowers in Greek mythology… Like, Adonis, and Narcissus, and Crocus! In fact, Adonis has healing properties just like the flower in the story."

"It magically heals people?"

"Well, not regular people. But if it was enchanted by someone like, oh, I don't know, a son of Demeter? And maybe, if a daughter of Apollo happened to help, it would be able to heal numerous illnesses. So, ha! I bet you can't magically heal people."

"Wait, say that again." said Hailey, suddenly very alert.

"I say, Nico can't magically heal people."

"No you idiot, before that."

"A son of Demeter and a daughter of Apollo could enchant a flower to heal numerous illnesses?"

Hailey and I stared at him.

"What? It's not like we know someone who's in need of some magical healing…"

Hailey smacked his head.

"You are _so _stupid."

"What? I don't get-" he was interrupted by a lady in a very unfashionable sundress and two of the security officers coming over to us.

"Officer! That's them! Those are the kids who stole my bag!" the lady shouted, pointing at us.

"What? We didn't steal anything!" I said.

"Of course you didn't." replied one of the officers. The other grabbed me and Riley by the elbows and pulled us out of our seats.

"Hey! Let go of them! You have some kind of misunderstanding!"

"Don't worry, we're not forgetting about you, sweetheart." He grabbed Hailey's wrist.

I was about to try out some of my killer moves on the officers, but before I could try anything they pulled us into the aisle way and led us to a small room in the back of the train.

"What are you gonna do with us?" asked Riley nervously.

"Well, we're gonna kick you off the train at the next stop where some nice police officers will kindly escort you to the station." explained the officer.

"What? We need to get to Michigan!" cried out Hailey.

"Maybe you should of thought of that before stealing this nice lady's purse!"

"We didn't steal-" she started.

"Don't waste your time. Who are we gonna trust? A respectable, mature lady or a group of teenagers?"

"Uh, the totally reliable, innocent, and responsible group of young adults?" suggested Hailey.

"Nice try, sweetie."

The officer turned to the lady. "Alright, thank you for helping us, ma'am. You don't have to stay any longer."

"Oh, that's alright. I just want to say a quick few words to these children. Maybe if they hear what kind of panic I went through, they will think next time before they grab an innocent old woman's bag. I'll only be a minute." She smiled at the officer, and he nodded and left the room.

The woman turned to us and smiled sadly. "Oh, it's such a shame that you children won't be able to get to Michigan…" She sighed, "If only you hadn't stolen my purse…"

"But ma'am, we didn't steal your purse!" shouted Riley.

She turned and smiled at him. "I know." She said pleasantly, and walked out of the room. We all watched her leave, dumbstruck, when she suddenly peaked her head back in. "Oh, and I hope you find the cure before all your silly little friends take a long trip to the Underworld. Bye-bye now, sweeties."

Hailey stepped after her, but before she could reach the door an officer had slid into the room and was escorting her back to her seat.

"Oh my gosh!" she yelled when she was sitting down next to us.

"No talking." Reprimanded the officer.

"Fine."

"I said, _no talking."_

"And I sai-"

"No talking!"

"Okay!"

"If you talk one more time, I will throw you out of this window!"

"No you won't. That's murder."

"So what? You're criminals!"

"We're children!"

"You're children criminals!"

"That was a really good comeback, I have to say." The officer, red-faced, marched over to Hailey and raised his hand as if he was about to smack her.

"You can't touch me." She said.

"And why is that?"

"Because if you lay a hand on me, that's child abuse and you will spend the next twenty years in prison, lose your job, and-" she glanced at his hand, "you'll never get married."

He glanced side to side and nervously lowered his hand.

"Ha! I could say it was self defense." He exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself.

"Oh? You're going to say a vicious 5'4" 15 year old girl attacked you, and you couldn't even hold her back? You had to hit her? That, my friend, would be pathetic."

He made a sound that resembled a growl, and then angrily stalked back to his original position at the door, glaring at her all the while.

But her moment of victory was short lived when the train stopped, and the oh-so-compassionate officer dragged us out of our nice comfy room and kicked us off of the train (not literally, but still).

There, two police officers were waiting for us with their fancy-smancy cop car. They strutted over to us, looking superior and arrogant.

"So, you bubs the little troublemakers? You think you so big and tough, you can steal a bag? Huh? Huh?" said one. Little donut crumbs were dotted in his mustache, which looked more like a hairy rat living on his upper lip.

"No sir, not at all." answered Riley.

Hailey was looking down. "And what about you, little girl? You think these boys here make you cool? Look at me when I'm talking to you!" shouted the other cop.

She looked up, and to my horror tears were running down her face.

"I-I-I'm just so scared!" The officers glanced at each other. The pathetic conceited look on their face had disappeared, and they looked horrified.

"Don't uh, cry, honey! It'll all be okay!"

She broke into sobs. "I don't know what to do!" One of the officers awkwardly patted her back.

"Hey, what's wrong with you two? Don't you see she's distressed! Go get her some tissues and something to drink!" shouted Riley. I glanced at him, wondering what he was up to. At this, Hailey burst into another round of sobs. The officers looked at each other, made some awkward movements to leave, and then both ran off to the train station to get some tissues.

Right before they reached the station, one of them turned around and shouted out "Go wait in the car!"

"Okay!" I shouted.

I stared at Hailey. "Uh… are you okay?"

She looked up. "Of course." All evidence she was crying had been erased. Her wet, puffy eyes were gone, and her cheeks were totally dry. "Let's get out of here before those stupid cops get back." She looked at me. "Would you like to do the honors? Well, actually you have to, considering you're the only one here who can shadow travel."

I sighed. "Alright, but you're not gonna like it…"

Grabbing both of their arms, we made a mad dash for the shadow of a large tree, leaving behind the hot summer day and entering the world of cold darkness and Hailey's screaming.

Lovely.


	10. Oh, Silly Jeffrey

**So I just read the first 4 chapters of this really amazing story by Banana Smoothie called "One Million Ways to Survive the Fifteenth Year". It was so good that I was inspired to be just like her and write some good ole' Nico stories. SO THANK HER FOR ME UPDATING!**

**Plus, it's the holiday season and I felt jolly and happy and all that jazz. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!**

**Disclaimer: For the tenth time in this story, I don't own anything :P**

Finally, after what seemed like eternity of Hailey screeching into my ear, the darkness vanished and we entered the regular world again.

The extra weight of Hailey and Riley (who were both clutching my arm) threw me off balance, and I unceremoniously tumbled forward, asphalt scraping my bare skin and leaving red marks. Sitting up, I waited for my head to stop buzzing, and then observed my surroundings just like a good little demigod should do when thrown into an unfamiliar surrounding.

Directly in front of me was a yellow Victorian house. Right under a bay window in the front of the house, there was a lush garden filled with small, colorful flowers. Perfectly trimmed hedges lined a stone walkway, and the house was completed with the oh so clichéd white picket fence. A mailbox decorated with elaborate paintings of birds and flowers (the whole shebang) was planted in perfect alignment with the fence, and a fresh newspaper was still sticking out of it, yet to be retrieved.

Just as the last of the buzzing disappeared from my head, a loud _thwack! _was heard and a bold pain erupted in the back of my head. Whirling around, I looked to see who would dare face the incredible Nico di Angelo. It turned out to be a 15 year old girl with a temper.

"Ow! What was that for!" I screamed, jumping to my feet in defense. The irritating buzzing had decided to return, much to my dismay.

"You could've at least warned me before you shadow-traveled! You _know _children of Apollo hate the dark!" she shouted.

"Well in case you didn't realize, I just saved us all from being thrown into jail!" she stared up at me, at least half a foot shorter, and yet she still looked intimidating.

"Maybe if you ha-"

"Guys! I really don't think this is the time for that!" interrupted Riley. Hailey and I broke our death glares long enough to glance at him. He was pointing towards that same yellow house before, or more towards the terrified looking woman staring at us from the window.

"Uh oh spaghetti-o's…" muttered Hailey. I turned to face her again, glaring

"Seriously? Are you serious right now?" I shouted.

She threw her hands up into the air, exaggerating things. "Well excuse me for adding a little hum-"

"Seriously! Shut up!" shouted Riley.

The woman at the window looked as if she had just seen a ghost. But alas, she had not. Instead, she saw a group of teenagers appear out of thin air. That's much more normal, right?

Before I could figure out what was going on, the two less cool members of the quest (Riley and Hailey, in case you weren't sure) had gone off and started walking up to the front door, dragging me along with them. After a few minutes of knocking and shouting "We know you're there! We saw you through the window!", the lady finally opened the door.

"Hello, ma'am. I'm Hailey, and this is Nico and Riley. Say hello, guys." Riley and I both muttered 'hi's and forced a smile. The woman just stared at us and then back at the street.

"You, you children, appeared out of nowhere…" she mumbled.

"Uh," Hailey laughed, "not to sound rude and correct you, but we walked here…" The woman looked unsure. Her mouth was still slightly opened, and her eyes continued to nervously glance at the street.

I looked over her shoulder and peeked inside her house. Immediately, I was greeted with over a dozen pictures of a boy, starting with a baby and ending with a teenager about our age dressed in a school uniform.

Hailey was trying to convince the woman by telling her about our trip from the grocery store and how we were going to a party just down the street, when I, being not only gorgeous but also sincerely nice, saved her.

"We're actually friends of your son, and decided to drop by and see if he's home." The woman immediately smiled, and I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for being so darn smart.

"Oh! You kids are friends of Jeffrey! Well, that's just a shame, because he went out for an early stroll with this girl he's 'dating' just minutes ago! Oh, this girl… She's quite nice, of course, but I much would have preferred him going with Jeanette. You children know Jeanette, right? Oh, she's just lovely. In fact, I grew up with her mother. But Kristen is nice too, just different. I wish she would focus more on her grades… An 80 in math is barely passing! Jeffrey will see his wrongs as he grows older. Oh my, silly me! Look at me blabbing! Well, Jeffrey's not here right now. But you're more than welcome to come inside and wait for him!"

"Oh, no ma'am, that's okay. But, just out of curiosity, how long a walk is it from here to Detroit?" politely asked Riley.

The woman gave him a blank stare. "Well, I can't really tell you since I'm not quite sure, but it's about an hour by car if that helps…"

I felt like shouting "Well since we obviously don't have a car, it doesn't, idiot." but I had the common courtesy to stop myself.

"Oh, my! What a coincidence! You see, I just remembered I have a doctor's appointment in Detroit this very afternoon! You see, my left ovary is-"

"Ms, that's quite alright; we don't need to hear the details."

"Oh, yes, sorry. Well, Jeffrey will be coming with me, so you kids will be more than welcome to tag along if you wanted to!" Grinning at our luck, I accepted before the other two could get anything out.

The woman then invited us inside (thinking back on it, it was pretty rude that she left us standing on the porch that whole time) and ushered us to sit on the couch while she made snacks. Flipping on the TV, I saw some show I didn't recognize (actually, I probably wouldn't recognize any show playing now) and mindlessly threw handfuls of chips into my mouth at a time for the next hour as Hailey spazzed out to some song she was listening to on her iPod and Riley made a vase of dead flowers come to life, and then die again repeatedly.

It was all quite entertaining.

About 45 minutes later, the front door was opened and the boy from the pictures, Jeffrey, walked in.

"Hey mom, I'm ho-" he saw us lounging on the couch and stopped, "Who are you?"

His mom ran into the room. "Your friends! They came over about an hour ago looking for you. They're going to come into the city with us! How exciting!"

Hailey chose this moment to burst out into song. "OOHHH YEAAHHH! Can't believeee that you betrayed mee! I guess first love, never lassstsss! Ooohhhhh first loveeee!" Getting carried away with the music, she jumped up and started dancing around.

"Hailey!"

"Wha-" She say Jeffrey and his mom staring at her. "Oh, hi." A blush quickly spread up her cheeks and neck.

"Hel_lo._" replied Jeffrey. He seemed to have not paid attention to her random spastic movements just a moment ago.

He walked closer to us. Even though it was summer, he was practically dressed in a school uniform. Khaki shorts and a white polo shirt made him look like a walking stereotypical preppy boy. He wasn't exactly unattractive (not nearly as good-looking as me, of course), but just glancing at him instantly irritated me.

"I'm Jeffrey. And you are?" He extended her hand to her, and she shook it enthusiastically. But before she could answer, his mom butt in.

"You don't know her name, Jeffrey? Oh, how rude! After all, she does go to your school?"

"Mom," he started, "I go to an all boys school…"

"Oh! Yeah, sorry. Riley and I go to his school, Hailey is our friend." I clarified.

"Ah, Hailey. What an angelic name." I swear he was about to kiss her hand when Riley snorted in attempt to hold back laughter.

But Hailey seemed to be eating it up. "Why, thank you! It was the name of my grandmother."

"And how lucky she was to have a granddaughter as sweet and beautiful as you." He gushed. I'm not sure if anyone else found it odd that he was romancing her in front of his mother. I swear Hailey nearly swooned.

Then charming Jeffrey turned to face me and Riley. "Oh, and how great it is to see Russel and Nick again!"

Riley cleared his throat loudly. "It's Riley and Nico."

"Ah yes, that's what I said." He waved us off, and went back to talking to Hailey, who suddenly had a fascination with twirling her hair.

"Well, we had better get going!" exclaimed his mother happily. Piling us into her very trendy minivan, we spent the next hour listening to Jeffrey tell Hailey "fascinating" stories about his adventures in an all boys school.

"And then," he said through laughs, "Blake threw the hat out the window, and the teachers never suspected a thing!" Hailey started to laugh too, while I just felt nauseous at how boring that story was. Riley almost seemed to be growling, and as we drove trees in our path began to almost grab at the car as he vented out his sudden anger.

Finally, we made it to the city and nearly threw ourselves out of the windows.

"Everybody find a partner and hold hands!" shouted the irritating mother. I practically gagged as Jeffrey intertwined his fingers with Hailey's and smiled at her.

Riley faced me. "I am _not _holding your hand." Just to show, he crossed his arms.

"I wasn't asking you to!" I crossed my arms too, to show two can play at that game.

Weaving down the streets, we were suddenly blocked by a crowd formed in the middle of the sidewalk. If I had to guess, I would say they were watching a street fight, but I just heard a girl yelling and a man yelling back.

"You charge people twenty dollars for this piece of crap!" the girl screamed.

"Hey! That's a good quality shirt!" the storeowner shouted back.

"Yeah? Well if it's such good quality, how would I be able to do this?" A ripping sound filled the air, and I had a feeling the shirt was now in two separate pieces. Entertained, I began to squeeze through the crowd, earning lots of "Hey!"'s and "Watch where you're going, kid!"'s.

"What do you think you're doing! I hope you know you're paying for that!"

"In your dreams!" shouted the girl, just as I almost reached the front of the crowd. I saw Riley, Hailey, and Jeffrey trailing behind me as our designated driver shouted for us to come back.

Hailey reached me just as I pushed through the front line of people and could finally see the action.

The store owner bared his teeth like a rabid dog. "Why you little b-"

Out of nowhere Hailey leaped into action and tackled the girl, pinning her to the ground with a big smile plastered onto her face.

"JILL!"


	11. Dilema in Detroit

**Here's to WhenDayMeetsDark for being my 300****th**** reviewer! WOOHOO! Hey, I updated quick, right? Well I'm going away in like 20 minutes, so it was either update now or in like three weeks, considering I have a ton of homework and school starts again on Monday. I chose now.**

**Disclaimer: Yeah… I really don't own Detroit, PJO and any of its characters, and.. yeah. But I do own Hailey, Riley, Jill, and Isabella? Haha. Yay for me!**

That's when things got confusing.

"Jill! I can't believe we found you already! We were all so worried!" Hailey went on and on, as the blonde under her struggled against Hailey's grip (and weight) to get free.

"Get," she thrashed around, "off of me!" Her feet kicked, searching for some way to escape. As Jill said this, a smaller blonde rushed over, smacking Hailey's back repeatedly.

"Get off of her!" she shouted, frantically trying to help.

"Ow, ow!" she cried, "Enough! I surrender!" Hailey stopped blabbing long enough to roll off of her friend, smiling in the process as she rubbed her back.

Jill had stood up, with the help of who I had assumed was her little sister, the other missing camper. Standing next to each other, they looked like they could be twins – that is if you don't pay attention to the fact they had at least a five year age difference and one was a foot shorter than the other.

Confused mumbles of bystanders echoed through the air.

"What's going on?"

"Who are the kids?"

"How much does a cheeseburger meal cost?"

Someone nudged my side. Turning, I saw Jeffrey who looked slightly confused. "Is she always this… enthusiastic? And who are the blondes?"

I blinked. Now that his mom had given us a ride to the city, I no longer needed to be nice, or even decently polite to him. If I really wanted to, I could push him down a manhole right now and only feel slightly bad. Instead, I decided to just be rude. "Go away."

He reacted as if I had just slapped him. Stepping back, his lips soundlessly started form words, making the appearance that he was imitating a fish.

"Wha-?"

"Did I mumble? Go. Away." I waved my hand, shooing him off, and he dejectedly sank back into the now dispersing crowd. Since there was no fight, there was no reason for the bystanders to stick around. They all slowly returned to their phone calls, search to find a taxi, and journey back to their job.

I turned my attention back to the girls, as Riley came up next to me. "So… that's Jill?"

_That's Jill? _

Confused as to what he meant, I looked at him. "What do you mean, 'that's Jill?'. Of course that's Jill! You act like you've never seen her before."

He remained silent.

"Wait, you've never even seen her?" he shook his head, "And you still came on this quest to save her life?"

He looked sheepish. "Well, it wasn't just her…"

"So you came for her little sister?" I asked, slightly sarcastically.

He blushed, "Wha-? No! I came for all the other campers that were paralyzed! Duh…"

I smirked. "Are you sure you didn't just come here for Haileyyyy?" I had said it in complete sarcasm, and yet his ears quickly became red.

He looked nervous as his cheeks flushed with color. "N-no! I don't even like Hailey, gods!"

I laughed, enjoying his awkwardness. "You totally do! I bet the only reason you came on this quest was because she came!"

"Not true!" he shouted back defensively.

"Yes true!"

"What's true, or not true?" came a sudden voice. All three girls were staring at us, causing Riley's face to quickly resemble a tomato.

"Hailey? Nico? And…" Jill stared at Riley, most likely cursing herself for not remembering his name. "Uh…"

I spoke up. "Riley, son of Demeter."

She smiled gratefully, and then went back to her statement.

"What are you doing here?"

"Saving your sorry butt!" shouted out Hailey, before tackling her into another hug.

"You came here to save me?" asked Jill, as if she couldn't believe it herself.

"Well, Nico came here to save you." She smiled at me, and I gave an awkward little wave, immediately yelling at myself afterwards. Hailey continued her story. "I just tagged along for the ride. Not because I like you or you're my best friend or anything, but I heard Michigan had really good potato chips and I couldn't miss out on that!" Hailey gave a toothy smile.

"Well, you didn't have to do that. I was just on my way home with Isabella now." Jill slightly stuck up her chin, too independent to admit she was in need of rescuing.

"No, you were just arguing with a store owner." I argued.

She waved her hand. "Eh, just a minor setback, Mr. di Angelo."

Hailey raised her hand, as if she was in school waiting to answer a question. "On that topic, may I ask why you needed a new shirt?"

"Well, _I _didn't, but poor Isabella here got hers ripped up in a little hellhound encounter yesterday. Nasty little buggers are gonna cost us twenty bucks for a stupid shirt!" Jill must've seen her younger sister's embarrassed face, for she added "Not that that's your fault, Bella."

Looking at her sister's shirt, I realized it _was_ in fact nearly shredded. A logo on the front had become unrecognizable, especially because of the large amount of duct tape holding the shirt together, most likely the doing of Jill.

The older daughter of Athena turned back to me. "So! It's very nice that you all came to 'rescue' my sister and I, but now that we're safe you can shadow-travel us back to camp so someone can explain to us how we ended up in Detroit when we were just on Long Island."

Riley frowned. "Hate to break it to you, but your little adventure isn't over. The quest wasn't just to save _you_,"

Hailey added in "Jeez, don't flatter yourself, Jill!"

Riley, ignoring her outburst, continued, "-we have to save all the other campers too."

Both girls became much more alert. "What do you mean? What happened to the other campers? Are they missing too?"

"No… they're paralyzed, like you were." Explained Hailey, suddenly taking on a much softer tone, as if she were talking to a scared child.

Jill looked clueless, which was a rare expression for a daughter of Athena. "What do you mean?" she asked, "We weren't paralyzed…"

"Yes you were; we saw you ourselves. It was the harpies, remember?"

They turned their attention to me. "No, I remember the harpies, but I was fine after that. I went back to my cabin and then suddenly I was in Detroit with my little sister."

"Well sometime in between then, you had both became paralyzed along with ten other campers."

"…Oh. Well, how did we end up here?" Jill asked.

"We were hoping you knew." I answered. Unfortunately for me, it seemed she didn't like that answer. Just a second after the words left my mouth, a hand had come and smacked the back of my head.

Ignoring my cry of pain, Jill began to speak. "Why on earth would you think we knew? Are we psychic? Oh, next thing you know we'll be seeing the future! Predicting lottery numbers! Communicating with the dead, perhaps?"

Rubbing my head, I added in, "Communicating with the dead is sorta my thing, if you don't mind…"

"Shut up!" she yelled, but her lips has a hint of a smile playing on them.

"That's stupid." Added in Isabella, and I realized the first time she talked was to call me unintelligent. "That's scientifically impossible. You can't communicate with the dead." She gave me a superior look.

"Yes I can!" I told her.

"So, you're telling me you just summon dead people and," she waved her arms, "WA-LA! Magically, spirits rise?"

I know she was being sarcastic, but she had hit in spot on. "Yep… that's pretty much how it goes."

"Nu-uh!" Standing on her tippy-toes, she looked up at me, a determined look on her face.

"Uh-huh!" I yelled back.

"Nu-"

Hailey interrupted our bickering. "Are you two serious right now? This really isn't the time for this…"

The young girl crossed her arms, turned around, and stuck her chin up. "Hmph!"

"Now that the fifteen year old and my younger sister have stopped arguing over communicating with the _dead_ of all things, don't you think we should, oh, I don't know, start looking for the cure and trying to figure out how we were woken up and magically transported to _Michigan_?"

It was silent besides the constant sounds of a busy city. Jill rolled her eyes.

"Fine! Someone tell me what the prophecy was." She ordered. I stepped forward, reciting it.

"It was:

_Wisdom shall be found in the Wolverine State,_

_Since a mother saved her daughters' fates._

_The heroes will find the missing and the cure,_

_But only death can open the door."_

With each line, she nodded her head, most likely memorizing it as I spoke. "Alright, the first line was simple. The Wolverine State, aka Michigan, was where you found the daughters of Athena, or _wisdom_. I don't quite understand the second line, though."

"Maybe it was Hera that saved you? The mother?" Riley suggested.

"But Hera's not in any way, shape, or form our mother!" argued Isabella. When she's not silent, she's arguing with somebody.

"What about your stepmother?" I asked Jill.

"The archeologist? She's in Egypt, researching the pyramids. Plus, there's no way she would be able to save us. She's about as powerful as a rubber duck." She laughed at her own joke. "And Isabella's dad was never remarried."

Hailey asked, "Well, what about Athena?"

"Athena?"

I nodded. "Yeah; the only two missing campers were the children of Athena. It seems to fit."

"I don't know… Athena has never expressed any sign of interest in the two of us. Besides claiming us, she has never made any form of contact with us, or any of our siblings. That is, besides _Annabeth _of course." said Jill, somewhat resentfully.

"Hey! Are you kids just gonna stand in the middle of the sidewalk for the rest of the day, or are you gonna move and actually let some people though?" shouted a man angrily, pushing me out of his way.

"We should get a hotel room or something." suggested Hailey. "Standing out here as an open target will do us absolutely no good."

Agreeing to do so, we walked for about an hour or so before coming across a hotel we could actually afford without completely wiping out our money supply. Alas, we could only afford one room with two beds, so the majority of us would be unfortunately sleeping on the floor.

Therefore, the second we stepped into the room, we were all pushing each other out of the way in order to get dibs on a bed.

"Mine!"

"No, it's mine!" Argued Riley and I. Each of us had a hold on either side of a pillow, and we quickly began fighting over it, nearly ripping it in the process.

"Hey! Hey!" yelled Hailey, "Everybody step away from the beds! There's an easy way to settle this!"

At her word, Riley took a large step back from the bed, which just convinced me more that he was secretly madly in love with her. Grudgingly, I followed his example.

Hailey smiled at her work. "Good! Now, girls get the beds, boys get to sleep on the floor!" and with that, Jill and Isabella jumped on one bed while Hailey claimed the other.

"Hey!" I complained. I considered pushing one of them off of the bed, but decided against it, considering it would probably lead to me sporting a trendy black eye by the end of the day.

"What? Fair is fair." nonchalantly stated Jill. "If a ship is sinking, girls get off first. If a door is held open, girls walk through first. If there are only two beds and yet five kids, girls get first dibs!"

"That's definitely _not _fair."

"Oh? And why is that?" challenged Hailey.

I threw my hands up, exasperated. "Because! The male gender is just as important as the female! We should get the beds! Look at all guys have done! Scientific discoveries, mathematics, settling America-"

"I'll have you know, since men were failing _horribly _in their quest to settle in America, England was forced to send women. And once we arrived, it was like BAM! Instant success." The daughter of Athena smiled, as if it were _her _that had come to America and help settle.

"I'll have _you _know, it's rude to interrupt. Anyways, men invented the car, the plane, the boat, must I go on?" I really hoped she said no, because I couldn't think of anything else men had invented. Maybe if I had actually gone to school, I would be losing this argument.

"Without men, there wouldn't be any of those things!" piped in Riley.

"Without women there wouldn't be _life!"_ exclaimed Hailey.

"Without men there wouldn't be life either!" I argued.

"Touché." said Jill. "But," she flopped down on the bed, "You guys still have to sleep on the floor."

Finally admitting defeat, Riley and I made ourselves comfortable on the floor. I was thankful that this hotel room didn't have piles of dead bugs and dust wherever you looked, but the floor wasn't much more comfy. I envied the girls, sitting under down comforters.

"So, what about the third line?" she twirled her hair. "_The heroes will find the missing and the cure."_

"Well that's clear, we found the missing and we'll find the cure."

"And the last line? _But only death can open the door_."

"Duh. It means, like always, I'm going to be the savior in the end; finding the cure, saving all the campers, having girls throw themselves at me, you know. The usual."

That was the third time I was slapped that day.


	12. Delightful Daffodils

**Apparently I should give WhenDayMeetsDark another shoutout for being "all around amazing". So… there's your shoutout. Yay. **

**And also to Cassidy Sapphire, for writing a super awesome story that you should all go check out. It's called The Undetermined and Kaitlyn. (I'm gonna be a character in it which excites me more than I could possibly tell you XD)**

**Disclaimer: Yeah… I really don't own anything… **

After a few hours of questioning the two daughters of Athena, we soon discovered that just as they had told us numerous times, they really didn't know anything about what had happened to them. The fifth time I had asked Jill if she had heard any mysterious feminine voices in her head calling her stupid, I'm sure she was just about ready to strangle me.

By the time we had finished interrogating them it was too late to venture out into the streets, unless we were looking to get jumped in some dark alleyway.

So after the sun had set and the creatures of the night had come out to play, we all gathered around and discussed our master plan. While we had completed the first start of the quest by finding the two girls, we were still missing the cure that would essentially save the lives of ten campers. And unfortunately for us, we wouldn't be able to pick it up in the nearest Walmart.

"Well, what could the medicine take form of?" asked Hailey, playing with the bathroom soaps. They were shaped like little suns, and she had taken quite an interest to them.

"It could be a plant, something that comes from animals, it could even be synthetic." Isabella began to jot things down on the complimentary hotel note pad as Jill spoke. "Without getting a basic idea, we could be looking for years before finding it."

The older blonde looked up at the less attractive boy in the room. "Riley? Any plants that you know of that could potentially reverse the paralyzing effects?"

He almost seemed to take personal offense to this. "That's like asking you if there was a book on how to memorize and perform spells from Harry Potter. How should I know?" he snapped, seeming very moody.

Jill, clearly agitated, crossed her arms and stuck her chin up in a very royal manner. "You could've just said _no_."

"Whatever." interrupted Hailey, acting as the peace keeper. Still playing with the small yellow soaps, she said, "Let's continue the discussion. Does anybody have any reason to believe they know what form the medicine is?"

"I do!" shouted Hailey, "You know how they say "the best medicine is laughter"?" we all nodded, wondering where this was going. "We just have to make them laugh, and _BAM_! Instantly cured!" Everybody groaned at her bad joke, while she cracked up.

_Are you really so thick that you haven't picked up on the hints yet? _The mystery voice strikes once again.

I rolled my eyes. _Can you seriously stop calling me stupid and give me a straight answer for once? What's the medicine?_

_Come _on_! The son of Demeter, the magical flower…_

_So what are you trying to say? The magical flower is real, and all we have to do is find it and it will cure everyone? _It's a talent to be able to think in a sarcastic tone.

I waited for a witty remark, but there was none. I decided to work with what she had given me.

"Hey," I said, stopping Hailey's strange laugher, "is there any chance there's a magical flower that cures illnesses? Magically?"

Cue the blank stares.

"I'm really not sure, Nico. But magical flowers really don't seem like your thing, unless I completely read you wrong, which I doubt I did."

I sighed. I thought I was onto something, and it seemed completely crazy without the evidence. I decided to tell them about the woman talking to me. I mean, crazier things have happened to demigods than hearing voices, right?

"Listen," I started, wondering how to phrase this whole thing without making it seem I was absolutely insane, "there's this strange voice in my head that keeps telling me things, and also calling me stupid." I admitted, "She's the reason I picked Riley for the quest, because she started talking about ginger or something! She gave me a book, too! One with stories for little kids! And there was a story about a magical flower! And-" I was suddenly cut off by the expressions of my peers.

Hailey looked at me with sad eyes and a small, lonely smile as if I was a wounded animal about to be euthanized. Riley, on the other hand, looked like it was taking all of his willpower not to burst out laughing. And Jill? She looked at me like I was completely crazy.

The History channel blasted from where Isabella was watching it a couple of feet away.

"Nico… You've had a long day. Maybe it would be best if you lay down for a while." suggested Hailey.

"You guys don't believe me." I stated, instead of questioning. Truth be told, I wouldn't believe myself either.

More blank stares.

"Alright, fine. Whatever. We'll drop the whole magical flower thing; but I'm telling you, it's important."

"And I'm sure that it is, Nico. Now go to sleep before you start talking about invisible beavers, okay?" I glared at Jill for her comment, but I had actually begun to feel tired, and I could barely drag myself onto a semi-comfortable part of the floor before I was out cold.

**(Hey, look at this super funky fresh line!)**

_And suddenly, I was back at camp._

_Children ran around, rushing off to their activities just as they always do. Groups of Aphrodite girls strutted around in their designer outfits, giggling and pointing at campers as they walked along. To my left I could see groups of kids in canoes paddling across the lake, while water nymphs swam alongside them, trying to tip over the boats. Birds sung, the sun shone, children smiled, and yet an ominous aura still hung around the infirmary. _

_I searched for a familiar face. I still hadn't gotten used to all the new campers, and being away on a quest for the majority of the summer sure wasn't going to help me memorize their faces. While the newly claimed daughters of Aphrodite sure caught my attention, I couldn't care less about the newest additions to Camp Half-Blood. Even though they were new and had no idea about what they were talking about, the campers still looked at me as if I was the Grim Reaper himself. It turned out to be quite annoying. _

_Seeing the Stoll brothers, I rushed over to them. "Hey, guys, where's Chiron?" I asked, hoping the centaur would be able to figure out how I got here. Both brothers remained quiet, which was unusual for them. "Hello?" More silence. "Travis? Connor?" They didn't even glance at me._

_Aggravated, I brought my hand up and hit Travis on the shoulder. "Hey!" the boy shouted. I smiled, finally getting recognized. _

"_Good! Now-" _

_Travis interrupted me. "What the Hades was that for?" he shouted, turning to his brother._

_Connor, confused, replied "What are you talking about?"_

"_You punched me!" exclaimed the older brother._

"_What? No I didn't!"_

"_Uh, you guys? I punched you…" They ignored me, yet again. I left the two brothers arguing as I went to find someone else that would actually talk to me. I recognized Annabeth's blonde hair from the archery range, and rushed over to her._

"_Annabeth!" I called. She turned to me and smiled. "Finally! Someone will actually acknowledge me." _

"_Hi!" she called out happily. She walked closer, until it looked like she was about to walk right through me. Moving out of her way, I watched as she hugged Percy, who had been standing directly behind me._

_The two greeted each other as I awkwardly stood there. "Annabeth?" I called out, "Percy?" The two didn't glance at me._

_I took one of Annabeth's curls and yanked it hardly. "Ow!" she cried out, whirling around to yell at the nuisance that had pulled her hair. She seemed to look directly at me, but she seemed confused. "I could've sworn someone pulled my hair…"_

"_I didn't see anyone." claimed Percy, looking at the people closest to them._

"_Hm… weird." Annabeth played with her hair, "It must've gotten caught on something." Disregarding the hair dilemma, she and Percy continued their conversation about going out to dinner that following weekend._

_I wondered if somehow I had died, and was some kind of ghost. After all, nobody could see or hear me, which practically screamed "ghost". I really didn't want to be a ghost, considering I had seen plenty of them in the Underworld and they just looked plain miserable. I was far too young and attractive to be that miserable. Plus, staying down there for too long makes me smell bad and the damp air makes me break out. While still crazy good looking, I wasn't as attractive with little red dots all over my face._

_Running off, I headed to the infirmary. I hoped maybe someone had sent me here, in hopes I would find the missing cure in my subconscious. _

_Pushing open the door, I made my way inside and grinned as I escaped from the harsh summer heat and was rejuvenated by the sudden air conditioning. It seemed perfectly clean, cool, and organized in here. And yet, the bodies still lay stiff and still on the small beds._

_Or so I thought._

_Almost seconds after entering, I noticed one of the campers move their arm slightly. _

_Here's a tip, in case you didn't know: paralyzed campers can't move their arms, legs, feet, hands, or really any other limbs._

_Rushing over to the body, I shook it. "Hello?" I called. Recognizing the girl as Kaylee, from the Demeter cabin, I realized she was Riley's half-sister. Maybe he really had come on the quest to help the other campers, and not because he was madly in love with Hailey. But since the second one sounds more exciting, I'm gonna stick to that one. Lost in my thoughts, I nearly fainted when the eyes of the girl popped open. She stared at me like I was insane, just as Jill had done only minutes ago._

"_May I ask why you're shaking me?" she asked, surprisingly polite for someone who had just been woken up by some weird camper nearly attacking her._

_Surprised, I took a step back. "Uh… you… paralyzed?" My mouth decided this was a good time to embarrass me and not function as it should._

_She sighed sadly. "Yeah, I guess I am paralyzed." She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stepped out. "It kinda sucks."_

"_Mhm, it definitely does." said a voice from my right. Looking over, I saw the rest of the campers were all sitting up in their beds as well, or even standing up and walking around. A son of Ares practiced his fighting by randomly jabbing at his invisible competitor. _

_Finally, my tongue started to work again. "If you guys are all paralyzed, how are you up and walking?"_

"_Well, that's obvious. Only our bodies are paralyzed, our minds are free as a bird!" said some girl, leaping from bed to bed to show just how free she was. _

"_But… how come I can see you?"_

_This seemed to stump them. "Well, maybe it's because you're not _really_ here. Just your mind is." said a daughter of Aphrodite. I remember seeing her in her petrified state and how horribly unattractive she looked with pale skin and scary bruises all over. Yet, here she looked as beautiful as ever._

"_Well this is all very cool, but I really need to get back to my quest so I can save you all."_

"_You know how to save us?"asked a younger camper, hopefully._

_I didn't know how to respond to this. "Well… no. But I'll figure it out. I have two daughters of Athena with me, it'll be fine."_

"_Daughters of Athena aren't goddesses, they don't know everything." said one kid, "You might want to consider asking the higher forces for some help. Or we'll end up like this forever."_

"_Well, aren't you little Miss Pessimistic?" said Kaylee, the camper next to me._

"_I'm just stating the truth!" argued the other kid._

_Before the two got into a verbal fight, some guy stepped in, "Whatever!" shouted the son of Hephaestus. "Arguing seriously isn't going to help us right now."_

"_Well unless Nico finds the cure, nothing is going to help us!" shouted someone else._

"_If something was going to break us out of this spell, it would have to be extremely magical, Nico. Magical." said Kaylee, again._

"_Magical." another camper muttered._

"_Magical."_

"_Magical."_

_Soon every camper was saying it._

"_Magical." "Magical." "Magical."_

_Pretty creeped out, I slowly began to back away from them. "Okay, magical." I put my hands up, telling them to stop. "I get it. It would need to be magical."_

_They continued repeating the word, which now almost sounded like chanting._

_And then there was a blonde daughter of Athena next to me. "Nico!" she shouted, shaking my shoulders. "Nico! Wake up!"_

_Wake up?_

"_Magical."_

"_Magical."_

"_Magical."_

_Completely terrified at this point, I pulled open the door and jumped outside._

I sat up quickly, bumping my head on what later turned out to be Jill's nose.

She shouted some very un-ladylike words, holding her hand up to her face. "Nico! What the Hades is wrong with you!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I just had this really weird dream…" quickly apologizing, I helped her to her feet.

"Sucks for you. That's really no reason to nearly break my nose! Gods…" Taking her hand away from her face, I saw just what a bloody mess I made. Grabbing a handful of tissues, I shoved them into her hands and she put them up to her nose.

After the bleeding had stopped, I asked, "Well, why did you wake me up in the first place?"

"Because it's morning, duh." Drawing back the curtains, sunshine flooded into the room.

Judging by the amount of light in the room and how messy Jill's hair was, I was going to take a wild guess and say I had slept through the night.

"Well, you can tell everyone about your dream. Isabella is still asleep, but I think Hailey and Riley are awake."

I sat up and looked around. There was a surprising absence of children of Apollo and Demeter.

"Where are they anyway?" I asked.

"I'm… not sure. I think one of them is in the bathroom, and the other may have gone out for a walk or something."Jill looked confused.

She walked over to the bathroom. "Hailey? Are you in there?" she pounded on the door. There was no answer. "Hailey? I'm coming in!" she hadn't cracked the door open for more than a second without screaming and slamming it closed.

"What's wrong?" my mind began to think of all the possible situations. She could be dead, sitting in the bathtub (which of course would be completely filled with her blood like in horror movies). Or maybe she was in combat with some nighttime intruder. Or she could just have been getting out of the shower and surprised Jill.

Really, I didn't expect her to be making out with Riley.

So when I opened the door and saw she was, needless to say I was pretty surprised.

Jill looked nauseated. "What are you two _doing!"_

I looked at Riley, who smiled sheepishly. "I thought that was pretty obvious…"

"Shut up, Nico! Do you two seriously think this is the time to be making out in the hotel bathroom!" exclaimed Jill. Storming in there, she grabbed Riley's arm and yanked him away from her best friend.

Hailey reached out and grabbed a bouquet of daffodils.

"But…" she said quietly, "he gave me flowers…"


	13. Awfully Annoying Author's Note

Dear dedicated and totally amazing readers,

Hi. So, I bet you're all ready to behead me for not updating in like, a really long time. But I assure you, it's only partly my fault.

So, here's where I complain about my stupid life and go all teen angst on you guys.

School has completely taken over my life. Midterms, tests, projects (did anyone else have to do the National History Day project? Ughh, that was the worst), etc. Plus, the small complication of my social life has also interfered with me writing.

But alas, I had in fact been writing the much waited for Chapter 13 of Being 15 is Tougher. Actually, I had almost finished it. I just had to edit the chapter, and then it would be up for your reading pleasures.

Here's where the part explaining why said chapter isn't up yet.

So, yesterday my mom's friend from like Pennsylvania or something came over with her two obnoxious sons. They're 7 and 9. If anyone has younger brothers those ages, you feel my pain. They scream, wrestle, and are miniature tornadoes of destruction – constantly leaving a mess in their path. So after my mom couldn't handle any more shouting, she made me hand over my laptop to the little brats so they could play with it.

Apparently "playing with it" means throwing it down a flight of stairs.

When we heard the crash, we went to see what had happened and found my laptop, destroyed, on the floor. My tech-savvy uncle tried his best to fix it, but unfortunately it was useless.

My computer, along with everything I have written in the past 2 years, is gone.

Joyous.

As much as you might be upset about the extended delay, I'm a little more upset about the fact that all my original work, along with fanfiction, has disappeared forever.

So I'm stuck writing on my mom's dinosaur era computer. It's horribly slow, and turns off every half hour or so on its own. Yay.

Okay, that's quite enough self-pity.

Now, I promise that I will do everything I can to get chapter 13 uploaded soon. I know you all hate author's notes, but I felt obliged to give you all an explanation for my late-ness. And I really didn't feel like being bombarded with PM's and reviews asking when I was gonna be updating. It's quite annoying, and makes me feel guilty.

Ciao for now!

-BrightBlueConverse


	14. Jorge and Thaumaturgic Vegetation

**I'M BACK! After like a month :P But it's okay! Because I'm here now!**

**Thanks for all the understanding about the whole laptop thing. If someone was snotty about it I probably would've gone into an angry rage and brought a sledgehammer down on this stupid computer. But everybody was super nice and so I thank you all :) and I'm really surprised at the amount of you that had similar experiences. Stupid little boys… :P**

**A thousand thanks to Cassidy Sapphire to gave me the plot for this chapter! :D I was stuck in a rut until lovely Cassidy came along and saved my sorry butt! So, thank her for this chapter.**

**P.S. I didn't know how to end this, so the ending kinda sucks :P**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, I really don't own anything…**

That was basically when Jill showed the city of Detroit just how loud she could scream.

"Flowers! _FLOWERS!" _she shouted, her face growing redder and redder as she spoke. "You practically shove your tongue down his throat for a couple of _flowers_!"

Hailey crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Hey! They were _very_ pretty flowers! Grown with love! Right, Riley?"

Under the pressure of Hailey batting her eyelashes and smiling at him, he muttered out "Yeah, grown with love, and soil, and stuff…"

That was all Hailey needed to hear. With a victorious smile on her face, she exclaimed "See! _Love!"_

"And soil." piped in Riley

"Love!"

Jill scoffed. "Love? You just met him a few days ago!"

Putting her hand on her chest, Hailey gasped dramatically. "Wha-? Pshhh, no! You of all people should know I've always had a secret crush on Riley!"

Jill rolled her eyes. "What? No you haven't! You've always had a not-so-secret crush on Taylor Lautner! Not Riley!"

Hailey sighed. "That's totally different, Jill!"

"Seriously? Look, female demigods are always put down. Apparently we're not strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough. On this quest, you're representing girl half-bloods all over the world! Do you really want to be remembered as that girl who got eaten by a monster because she was too busy making out with a fellow quest member and didn't hear it coming?" Hailey tried to get something out, but Jill was on a roll and there was no stopping her. "Do you think great heroines throughout history have taken breaks on their quest so they could swap spit with some random teenage boy? Do you think Atalanta was caught hiding behind some bush kissing Meleager! No! No, sh-"

Holding one hand up, Hailey stopped Jill's rant and quickly began to speak before her friend could continue yelling at her. "Hey, I know you're reprimanding me and stuff, but are you comparing me to Atalanta? Because that is, like, soooo sweet of you! I mean, Atalanta? Gee, I'm blushing? Right? Yeah! See?" she pointed to her cheeks, "I'm blushing! You would make a great Atalanta, too; or a Penelope, because she was quite the clever one, eh? Hey! Do you remember Penelope from the Aphrodite cabin? You know, the one with pretty hair, pretty eyes, pretty- oh, wait. That doesn't narrow things down. The one with the red hair. Remember? Yeah, you remember. Ugh, she was such a brat. This one time, when she was dating Andrew, she came into the cabin, right? And I was on my bed putting on lipgloss. It was that cherry one I got at that cute store, remember? The one with the sparkles? Yeah? Remember? You remember. So anyways, she was like 'Hi Hailey!' and I was like 'Hi Penelope!' and she was like 'Cute lipgloss!' and I was like 'Thanks!' and she was like 'Can I borrow it?' and I was like-"

"Hailey!" Jill shouted out.

"Hm?"

"Shut up!"

**(look! It's another of those really cool and totally exciting lines!)**

After an hour of Jill giving Hailey the cold shoulder and Isabella refusing to be torn away from the History channel, we were set to leave the hotel and get back on with the quest. We walked down the hot, concrete sidewalks as busy commuters hurriedly rushed past us; shoving us out of the way as they quickly talked on their smart phones. Considering Isabella refused to put down her book long enough to walk down the street, Riley and Hailey were forced to walk on either side of her as a protective barrier. Jill and I had to stand in front of and behind her, completing the human shield. If we were wearing black suits, ear pieces, and dark tinted sunglasses, we would've easily been mistaken for the Secret Service.

"Hey…" Isabella said at random, looking up from her history book for the first time since we had left the hotel, "What if the cure is some kind of thaumaturgic type of vegetation that contains chemicals that, when used correctly and perhaps with the enchantment of a demigod, could be used to cure whatever illness is present?"

Though I didn't have the slightest clue what "thaumaturgic" meant, the rest of the sentence talked about a plant that could heal them.

Ha.

She obviously wasn't listening yesterday when I said that and got turned down. I looked forward to seeing her idea being rejected.

"That's… " Jill started, most-likely trying to phrase it in a nice way without hurting her little sister's feelings, "that's genius!"

…What?

"Yeah, that's brilliant!" exclaimed Hailey.

Jill grinned. "Izzy!" she picked her up and swung her around, "Where did you come up with that brilliant idea!"

The little demon smiled and giggled in a most annoying way. "I dunno, I guess being a daughter of Athena has its perks, right?"

"Woah, woah, woah!" I shouted out, "Wait, you guys are joking, right?" I asked. This _had_ to be some kind of trick. I was no genius, but I was pretty sure that April Fool's Day was actually _in _April.

"Why would we be joking?" asked Jill, seeming annoyed.

"I said that _exact _idea yesterday and you all looked at me like I was waving around a cheeseburger and wearing a tiara!" exasperated, I threw my hands into the air.

Jill gave me her signature eye roll. "Uh, you said something about a magic flower, Nico."

"So did she!" I complained.

There was no way the little brat was going get away with this. Tons of things she's done has made me mad, but this? Stealing my thunder? No, I don't think so.

Isabella copied her sister by rolling her eyes. Something about this made me want to throttle her; little girl or not. "No, I said a thaumaturgic type of vegetation! Gosh, some people…"

"Jill!" I shouted.

"What do you want me to say?" she replied, sounding like a mother separating her two bickering children.

"Fine!" I exclaimed, "Don't believe me!"

"Okay." She casually stated, and then looked to her _darling _sister. "Anyways, since you came up with that profound idea and we're all starving, why don't you pick out a restaurant and we'll go eat?"

"Yayyyy!" annoyingly shouted Isabella. "Let's to go _El Café de Lorenza_!"

"…What's that?" questioned Riley.

Isabella looked at him as if he was garbage rotting on the side of the street. "Oh, it's this wonderful Spanish vegetarian restaurant that specializes in salad, favored water, and fruit!"

"Salad, water, and fruit? Are we demigods or gerbils?" I asked.

"Hate to break it to you, but when I said 'restaurant' I was talking about something a bit cheaper? More convenient?" the older blonde took her sister's hand in what I'm sure was a very sweet gesture. "Plus," she added, "I have the metabolism of a squirrel. If all I eat is salad and fruit, I'll be hungry again in a matter of minutes."

_Izzy _frowned. "Oh… well then what about _The Swan Lake_?"

Hailey, who looked very confused, pushed her way into the conversation. "Wait," she said, "I thought Swan Lake was some ballet thing?" To symbolize ballet, she danced around on her tiptoes (earning some angry glares from passing by pedestrians as she shoved past them) and attempted to leap through the air, but failed when she ungracefully crashed into a businesswoman.

"Well, it is," the little devil explained, "but it's also this delightful Italian vegan restaurant that-"

"Isabella!"

"Fine! Okay, can we go to _Les M-_"

Before she could go into another culture lesson and teach us about some strange restaurant that nobody has ever heard of, Jill decided to put us out of our misery. "Nico, you pick."

Finally; a reward for being so wonderful.

Without missing a beat, I spit out the name of a restaurant worthy of the gods.

"Taco Bell."

"Taco Bell!" Princess Isabella gagged. "Homeless people eat there!" she cried out, "Vermin eat there! I heard someone found a finger in their chili! I heard someone found a _rat_ in their burrito! I heard-"

Having enough of her insulting the best restaurant on the face of this planet, I shouted "Well I heard that annoying little girls are a monster's favorite snack!"

Like any little girl, when insulted she turned to a figure of authority and tried to get somebody in trouble. "Jillllll!" she cried out, "Nico said-"

"Seriously? Am I your mother? Nico, Izzy, stop arguing!" Turning her back, the evil little blonde stuck her tongue out at me.

Stuck her tongue out!

Can you even believe that?

She _dared _stick her tongue out at the King of Ghosts? The Prince of Death? The true Greek hero?

No. Nobody gets away with that.

"You're stupid!" I shouted at her, which was a pretty lame insult to a little girl with an IQ of 140, but I was too frustrated to think clearly.

"You're an idiot!" she yelled.

Something about arguing with her brought out the obnoxious ten year old boy in me, and I couldn't help myself from shouting out "I know you are, but what am I?"

Just as I was about to come back with some quick and witty remark, Jill interrupted.

"I swear to the gods if you don't shut up I will take you both right back to camp and continue this quest without you!" she screamed.

We were both silent, hanging our heads guiltily.

"Good! Now, to Taco Bell we go."

Moving along, neither of us said a word. But that was okay.

It was obvious I won.

**(Oh my gosh, another line! Cah-razyyy!)**

Finding a Taco Bell just a few blocks away, we hurriedly ran inside and waited on the annoyingly long line to order.

A man, probably in his early twenties, stood behind the counter. An ugly orange visor that read "Taco Bell" drew attention to his disgustingly greasy hair, and a wispy mustache sat upon his lip. Scrawny arms awkwardly stuck out of his uniformed shirt, and I noticed an unattractive under bite from where I was standing. His name tag read "Jorge", which I'm guessing wasn't his real name considering he had curly red hair and freckles.

Hot.

"Can I take your order?" he asked in a strange accent.

I stepped forward, eager to order. While I couldn't possibly decide on just one thing, I had intended on ordering anything that sounded remotely delicious on the menu.

A.K.A. Everything

But unfortunately, Jill had decided to rain on my parade and told me I could only order one thing.

One.

So, I decided to order something with the word "grande" in it. I was pretty sure that meant "big" in Spanish. It either translated to that, or "eraser". I could only hope for the first one.

"Can I have a grande soft taco with extra cheese?"

"Yes." He answered in a dull voice. I stepped aside, content with my decision, and Jill quickly took my place.

"Can I have a hard shelled taco with meat, cheese, lettuce, and onions?"

"Yes."

Hailey stepped forward next.

"Can I have a salad?"

"Make that two!" called out Isabella from behind her.

Hailey sighed. "Can I have _two_ salads?"

"Yes."

Riley came forward. "Can I have a bean burrito-"

"No." He shook his head.

Riley, surprised, took a step back. "What? Why not?"

"Bean burritos make you go _toot_. No bean burrito for you." He explained. Both Hailey and Jill giggled girlishly at the word "toot".

"Are you kidding me?" Riley questioned.

"No." he said in the same monotone voice.

"Give me a bean burrito!" demanded Riley.

"No!"

"Yes!"

_Jorge _sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine, but you and your friends will very much regret it later."

"I don't care!"shouted Riley, "I just want my bean burrito!"

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"One bean burrito, one grande soft taco with extra cheese, two salads, and one hard shelled taco with meat, cheese, and lettuce." recited the boy.

"And onions." added in Jill, correcting the order.

"And an onion." he said.

"No, _onions_." She corrected irritably.

"Ohhhh, onions! I see." He nodded his head. "How many?"

"What do you mean?" asked Jill.

"How many onions do you want?" he slowly said, pronouncing each word clearly. Afterwards, he muttered "….Idiot"

"What are you even talking about? exclaimed Jill. If there's one thing I learned about her, it's that she has absolutely no tolerance for those less intelligent than her. And this guy was a -5 on a smartness scale from one to ten.

"What are _you _talking about?" he remarked.

"Onions!" she cried, throwing her hands up.

"Oh good," he sighed a breath of relief, "me too."

"Okay, listen." she slowly explained, "I want you to take an onion, cut it up into very small pieces, and then put it in my taco. Comprende?"

He didn't seem to pick up on her rudeness. "Ohhh! I see; sorry for the confusion, miss."

"That's quite alright." Jill glared at him.

"So, is that all?" he asked.

We all shook our heads.

"Great. That'll be 190 dollars." He said with a smile.

"What?" we exclaimed.

"That'll be 190 dollars." he happily explained again.

"That can't be right!" Riley commented.

The guy rolled his eyes. "Yes it is. It says so on the cash register. The cash register _never _lies!"

With a sigh, Jill hopped over the counter, earning a "Hey!" from the cashier, and checked the price for herself.

"That says _19 _dollars!" she shouted.

The man sighed. "Is there really a difference?"

Was there something seriously wrong with this idiot?

"Jeez, calm down you guys. So dramatic…" Pressing some buttons and getting change for the money we had handed him, he called out our order to the kitchen. Not a moment later and he was back withtwo bags and a big smile on his face.

"Enjoy your day!" he said.

Grabbing the bags, we got out of there as soon as we could. The retched stench of rotten eggs and body odor was getting so bad that my stomach was beginning to feel queasy. It was torture to have to hold a bag of tacos after not eating for a day and not being able to rip it open and shove the contents into my mouth.

Finally after we found a sitting area suitable for the girls (me and Riley were willing to sit in the middle of the road, but apparently that was "dangerous" and "stupid" and "the place where street vermin reside", and so we were forced to continue looking until we found a public park with benches.

Settling down on the bench and getting comfortable (which included me pushing Riley off so I could have more room for myself), we finally opened the bag, passed out its contents, and began to devour everything edible.

It was all very peaceful until a series of unladylike curses came flying out of lovely Jillian's mouth.

"What's wrong?" asked Hailey.

In response, Jill showed her meal, still wrapped in the yellow paper. Unfolding it, she dropped the contents onto her lap.

Resting on her leg sat nothing but a single onion.


	15. Human Sacrifices are No Fun

**So, this chapter was gonna be a fight scene. I failed miserably. And so, I decided to add in some action, but no real demigod vs. demigod battle to the death/serious maiming/unconsciousness/etc. Excuse this pathetic chapter. It was over 10 pages, but then I cut it in half and made the second half the beginning of the next chapter so I could update sooner. Lo siento. **

**Butttt…. Next week is February break! Which means more time for writing, which means more updates. **

**YAY!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, yadda yadda yadda, all rights go to Rick Riordan.**

After Jill forced everyone to give her two bites of whatever they ordered, we were set to leave and continue the quest.

There was just one itty-bitty problem:

We had absolutely no idea what our next step was.

We didn't even know what the cure was, for crying out loud. We had decided it _could _be some kind of magical plant; the key word being "could".

"Well, we could visit some famous gardens around the world…" suggested Riley. For some odd reason, I had a feeling he was just saying that to fulfill his not-so-secret lifelong dream of visiting famous gardens around the world. Just a wild guess.

"You would just love that, wouldn't you?" I asked. Blushing, he looked away sheepishly.

Isabella made a suggestion next. "Maybe we should make a sacrifice to the gods." she glanced at us ominously, "A _human _sacrifice."

Before anybody could say anything, like, I dunno, "_That's sick and disgusting you little psycho_", the evil little girl shouted out "I nominate Nico!

"What! Hey!" I cried out. As the son of Hades, I had obviously thought about death a lot; and more importantly how I wanted to go. All of them involved some heroic, memorable (yet tragic) actions that would surely get me a statue on Olympus. And I'm more than sure being sacrificed to find a stupid _plant _wouldn't get me any statue.

Jill, acting as the peacemaker, stepped in. "Alright, that's enough." she called out to her sister, "As much as we all know you would love to, we can't sacrifice Nico."

"Ha!" I cried out in victory.

The little girl stared at me evilly. "You just wait… You have something coming to you, di Angelo." While she only came up to my stomach, the glint in her eye actually had me a little frightened for the sake of my life.

The older blonde looked at her sister sternly. "Isabella! You know what I told you about threatening people!"

"Sorry Jill…" mumbled out Isabella.

Unfortunately, my victory was short lived because seconds later we started to hear the screaming.

Hailey's humorous face suddenly turned serious as she screamed "DUCK!"

For some reason I was pretty sure she wasn't talking about the webbed-footed bird, and if there's one thing I learned from all my years as a demigod, it's that if someone says "duck", you duck.

And so that's what I did.

And it's a good thing, too, since seconds later talons swooped down just inches above my head.

Screaming pedestrians ran for shelter insides their cars or nearby buildings. Though I wished I could do the same – jump inside a taxi and get as far away as possible – I grabbed my sword from my bag and got back on my feet.

Apparently this wasn't the smartest thing to do, since seconds later the talons were back, barely missing my head. An angry screech rang through the air, and while it was my instinct to go after whatever was attacking us, I had a feeling that would leave me cut up into little tiny pieces all over the park. And _nobody, _not even this attractive body, would look good chopped up and distributed throughout Detroit.

Diving for the ground before the sharp talons came for a third time, I managed to land next to (or relatively close to) Jill.

"What are they!" I called out loudly, and I was still only barely audible over all the chaos going on around us.

"Gorgons!" she screamed. She reached for the sheath around her waist and grabbed the knife that was concealed under her shirt. She gripped it in her hand, looking like she was using it just for the comforting feel.

Because nothing is more comforting than the grip of a knife in a time of danger.

"Again!" I called out. These gorgons had come to Camp Half-Blood only a few days ago, and now they were back; this time in Detroit.

"No, Nico. I'm making this all up. In fact, those terrified pedestrians over there are just actors I hired." Somehow, even while fearing for her life Jill managed to be sarcastic. "Can you see the rest of them?"

I turned my head so I could see what the rest of the group was doing, and if they were safe. Riley had cleverly, and surprisingly quickly, made a set of armor out of vines he had grown. While it could probably guarantee no life threatening wounds, I didn't think those vines were gonna protect him much from the gorgon's razor-sharp talons. Hailey was on the ground, trying to call something out to me and Jill, but her voice was lost in the cries of the Detroit population.

Isabella, on the other hand, was in the process of climbing up a tree while the rest of us were sprawled across the ground.

I knew she was crazy.

"They're all safe," I called out, "but you're psychopathic sister is climbing a tree."

"What!" she screamed, prepared to get up and run over to that annoying little girl and hopefully smack some sense into her (and hopefully smacking some compassion into her as well).

"Don't worry; she'll be fine." I assured her. I didn't really know if she was going to be okay, but the last thing I wanted was to have to drag around an unconscious Jill again. Last time she got hurt it resulted in me falling out of a tree. "What you _should_ be worrying about is how long we have on the ground before those winged demons come down here and slice us up into demigod chop meat."

"What a delightful image."

My sword was reassuring in my hand, and while the stygian iron may temporarily frighten the monsters, it wouldn't do much good for distance. Swords were only good for combat, not shooting down something from the sky. If we had a gun right about now, that would be pretty helpful.

"If I could just get over to Hailey to get my bow and arrow, I would be able to shoot at them as opposed to fighting with my sword. How far away is she?" asked Jill, trying to scream over the noise. Police sirens had started wailing in the distance, and I figured we didn't have much time before they reached us.

I looked to find Hailey again. Somehow in all the panic, we had all managed to separate ourselves. "She's a good 200 feet away."

"Alright, cover me." And before I could do or say anything else, she was up and running towards her backpack; and I had no choice but to get up and run after her.

While it was just a short run to her backpack, the whole time was spent freaking out over the fact we at were out in the open and defenseless while sinister monsters were just plotting our death. Every second that passed felt like ten minutes, and I couldn't stand being an open target like that.

Not pausing to lay down again, Jill swooped up her bag and continued running with me hot on her heels. She pulled out her equipment, swirled around (nearly knocking me over), and began to shoot at the sky. Unfortunately, since she couldn't look directly at them and risk being petrified (again), she might as well have been blind folded. The arrows shot into the air, but aimlessly fell back to the earth.

"I need to look at my target!" she shouted out. "This isn't doing us any good!"

I remembered hearing a story at camp about a daughter of Aphrodite who was dragged on a quest, but ultimately saved the whole thing by using her mirror to see Medusa without actually looking at her. She went back to camp, was considered a hero, fell in love, blah blah blah. And then there was the story of how little twelve year old Percy killed Medusa, looking at her reflection in a shield. Sure, easy for them. But unfortunately for us, we had no reflective items. Water would've worked wonderfully as well, but alas, there was no water in this park, and so we were stuck blindly shooting arrows into the sky.

"Demigods! Demigods!" one croaked. Trying to follow the voice, Jill shot another arrow. Yet again, it fell back to the ground.

Riley and Hailey were up off of the ground now, standing back to back and listening out for any nearby monsters. Swords out in the ready, nothing could touch them. Except from above, which was unfortunately exactly where the gorgons would be coming from.

As one of them swooped down, we all ducked. This time it was so close that the talons nearly scraped the top of my head; managing to skim over my hair.

"What do we do!" called out Riley.

We all ducked again as the other gorgon dived down, and then Jill called out "Run!"

And so we did.

Taking off in a sprint, we managed to dodge their attacks for a few yards.

"Demigods! Demigods!" they cried.

The park had been completely deserted. Then again, who in their right mind would stick around when ancient Greek monsters were terrorizing the area?

But as we approached the street, we realized we couldn't bring the gorgons towards the bystanders. The last thing we wanted was to have to deal with the death of a few humans. And so with nowhere to go, we were all forced to stop running and face the terrible beasts.

We stood in the same pairs, back to back, as the creatures circled us overheads like birds of prey.

And then they attacked.

One dove down, sharp talons first, and the other followed shortly after. If I hadn't deflected the first one with my sword, my face would've looked like a tic-tac-toe board. A vine summoned up from the ground quickly wrapped itself around the other gorgon, but with an angry screech she ripped right out of it.

"Demigods! Demigods!" they called tauntingly. "Daughters of Athena! Such pretty, vulnerable daughters of Athena! Demigods!"

One of them perched itself in a nearby tree and crowed again.

"The cure is with the woman who shall not be named,

Defeat the temptation, and the cure shall be claimed!"

Down they came again.

This time, Jill managed to slash at one with her blade, but it seemed to only anger the creature.

"Hey! Ugly! Over here!" called out a bold voice from a tree, and suddenly the whole plan made sense to me. That's the thing with children of Athena: They always have a plan. Always.

"Yeah! You!" she taunted. Angrily, the gorgon screeched and flew towards the tree. And there was Jill, bow at the ready, looking like Artemis herself as she pulled back the arrow and launched it towards the miserable creature. The arrow lodged itself in the gorgon's side, and with a final scream the creature limply fell back down to the earth.

But unfortunately, there were two sides to this plan; and the other side wasn't so beneficial for us.

Like an arrow itself, the second gorgon dove down, talons glinting in the sun like knives, right towards Jill.

And before I even knew what I was doing, I was sprinting right into the gorgon's path, pushing the blonde to the side and instead taking her place. Not a second had passed before I felt the talons slash my arm, and my vulnerable skin sliced right open as the claws dug deeply into my flesh.

I let out an involuntary groan of pain, stumbling clumsily to my knees.

"Nico!" someone called out. My mind struggled to decipher whether it was coming from a boy or a girl. Warm blood dripped down my arm, staining my skin and shirt, and I couldn't do anything but hold my wound and pray to Apollo to heal it.

Though I must've sounded like a total wimp, I let out another cry of pain.

I heard a sickening slash, a final screech, and the small breeze of air that always seems to appear when a monster explodes into a pile of dust.

"We have to get out of here!" called out another voice. Screams were heard in the distance and police sirens that just moments ago were nearly inaudible now wailed loudly. Somebody grabbed me and pulled me back onto my feet. Though I couldn't see where I was going, I hobbled away with whoever was supporting me, hoping that it was Riley and not some paramedic or police officer. The last thing I needed was to be interrogated about who I was and what just happened.

I was pushed into a car, and was surprisingly relieved to see a blonde head in the driver's seat. Somehow in all the chaos, they had managed to slip away, dragging me along with them.

"Nico?" somebody called. "You with us?" I managed to mumble in response, and heard more than one sigh of relief.

A pounding had begun in my head. My vision had become distorted, and my hearing as well. Everybody says after a few minutes the pain gets mildly better, but this was only getting worse. It felt like the cut was continuously being reopened as someone poured lemon juice into it.

Finally, somebody shoved ambrosia into my mouth, and I gladly chewed on the familiar caramel taste of it; sighing at the relief that came along shortly after I swallowed it. A straw was put up to my mouth, and I greedily drank the nectar. The pain, while still excruciating, was slightly more bearable now.

But why was it only _slightly_ more bearable? Shouldn't I have been able to dance a jig after eating that dangerous amount of godly foods? Why did I still feel like somebody was repeatedly stabbing my arm?

"Don't worry; we're almost out of here." said a reassuring voice.

Suddenly somebody, whom I'm assuming was Hailey, took charge and began to bark out commands. "Somebody has to keep pressure on his arm at all times!" at this, a hand was firmly grasped onto my arm. It took all I had not to cry out in pain, but apparently I wasn't a good enough actor, since the same voice cried out "Not too hard! You're hurting him!" The pressure was slightly relieved, but that didn't mean it was any less painful.

"Don't let him doze off! Keep him awake; the blood loss will make him sleepy.

That's exactly what I was: sleepy.

Falling into the sweet numbness of slumber had never been more appealing than it had then. And with many shouts of protests, hands shaking me, and people calling out my name, that's exactly what I did.


	16. Sarcastic Fathers and Jumpin from Trains

**I'mmmmm bacckkkkk! Vacation was kinda boring. And I had writer's block :P Sucks for me! But I start school tomorrow, and I decided to just get this chapter over with and move on with my life. Not the best, kinda rushed, but I'll probably go over it again later :P**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anythinggg :P**

I was dead.

Or at least it seemed like I was. Dull, lifeless spirits crowded around me like they were moths and I was a bright flame. The overpowering, throbbing pain in my shoulder had completely disappeared. The River Styx ominously weaved through the land, assuring me that I was in fact in the Underworld.

_Am I dead?_

I hadn't realized I had said it out loud until I heard a response.

"No, you stupid boy. Why on earth would you be dead?" I whirled around, seeing the god of the Underworld himself, my oh-so-loving and compassionate father, Hades.

"Because I just got attacked and now I'm in the Underworld…What else could've possibly happened?"

"Did you ever consider your old man just wanted to have a nice conversation with you?" he asked, though it was obvious by the way he said it that that was not the reason I was in his presence.

"No." I shook my head, "I can honestly say I did not consider that."

He sighed dramatically. "Nico, why don't we take a walk, hm?"

Saying that having a conversation with Hades was awkward was an extreme understatement.

The man/god lacked something called social skills. While I was no social butterfly myself, I at least understood that while having a conversation with somebody, both people were required to talk.

"How's, uh, Cerberus doin'?" I asked in an attempt to break the awkward silence. All I received was a nod of Hades' head. "And your, um, wife, Persephone?" Another nod. I was about to ask him if he had ever considered putting a Taco Bell down there in the Underworld, when he ever so rudely interrupted my thoughts.

"Nico, let's cut the small talk." he said. We continued walking along the side of the Styx River, dangerously close to the edge, in my opinion. "You nearly ended up in an early grave in the middle of a quest. Do you think you would've been remembered highly for that? No. And I wouldn't have been thought of too highly either, Nico."

"Wait, what?"

"Do you think I want people to think of me and then go 'Hey, his idiot son got sliced up by some gross old gorgon for this girl he had a crush on'? Hmmmm Nico? You think that's what I want?" he questioned.

"No…?"

"Exactly. You're powerful, Nico. More powerful than you and your small teenage brain can understand at the moment. So don't go off and ruin your life for a girl, no matter how pretty or smart she may be. Understand?"

"Uh, I guess." I didn't really, but the last thing I wanted was to be lectured by Hades again.

"Good!" The small smile he showed seemed foreign on his face. "Now, you may go."

"Go?" I asked, "I don't even know how I got here!"

He sighed again. "I had my pet Pegasus kidnap you and bring you down here so I could have some quality time with my son."

"Really?" I didn't know Hades had a pet Pegasus…

His familiar cold stare was back. "No. You're dreaming."And with a snap of his fingers, I was gone, but even as the scenery of the Underworld was replaced by a field of darkness I could hear my father's voice as he let out a humorless laugh and said "Don't get too excited about leaving; you'll be back sooner than you expect."

**(Hi. My name is Robert and I am here representing a line. It's so very nice to meet you.)**

I woke up on a train.

No, not one of those plush, comfortable trains that we were rudely kicked off of a day or two ago. I was in some kind of cargo car, with crates stacked upon crates all over the small area.

As I slowly gaining consciousness, I was hit with a blast of pain coming from my arm. Groaning, I shifted my body, and ended up hitting into someone (which seemed to induce some more pain).

"Nico! You're awake!"

I tried to say something along the lines of "Yes, I'm awake; and even with these deep gashes on my arm, I still manage to be incredibly good looking. That takes some serious skill, don't you think?" but instead it came out more like "_Mmmmbeelejuggg_".

"Is he awake?" asked another voice.

I tried to talk again, but that time it came out sounding even worse (if that was even possible).

"Good; now, punch him for nearly giving us all a heart attack!" said the same voice.

"I can't punch him; he just got attacked by a monster!" complained another from my side.

The pain in my shoulder had felt immensely better, but I was strangely exhausted and quite frankly I just wanted everybody to shut up so I could go back to sleep. I attempted to wave them away with my hand, but instead it just looked like I was having a small seizure.

The zealous brunette sat in front of me. "Look, we don't want to scare you considering you just passed out for 7 hours after getting mauled by a gorgon, but on top of that we're pretty sure that gorgon was walking around in something not-so-sanitary and your wound is totally infected.

I groaned. Of _course _it was infected. Just my luck.

"But no worries! Because Doctor Hailey is here and she's gonna make your boo-boo all better!"

And so after a few painful minutes of her clenching my arm and chanting while "healing" me, the wound was officially _less _infected.

Yay.

The next few hours were really, really exciting.

Really exciting.

I dozed in and out of sleep (though luckily I didn't return to the Underworld again), nearly cried a few times, had nectar and ambrosia shoved down my throat (literally) and was stuck in the back of a moving train the whole time. Sounds exhilarating, right?

But fortunately, after all that work, I was actually feeling better. And guess what? I was finally able to form full sentences without either grimacing in pain or wanting to pass out from the effort.

Hooray for Nico!

Soon the light creeping in through the opening in the car door began to fade, and eventually dimmed down until there was only darkness left. I preferred it that way; it was peaceful, and the familiar darkness was strangely comforting to me.

Sitting there, only being able to see each other in the light from Hailey's emergency light (after all, she _was_ terrified of the dark), we made small talk.

Actually, _they _made small talk while I sat there and wondered what possessed me to take the sarcastic blonde's blow instead of just politely sitting off to the side. It could be that I was secretly madly in love with her, but didn't realize it yet. Or it could be that I would never hear the end of it from Annabeth if she died, or got as much as a scratch on her.

Yeah, that was probably it.

Hailey nudged me. "Hey, Nico."

"What?"

She giggled. "I have some good news for you."

"Care to share?"

"It's an old Chinese custom that if you save someone's life, they'll love you forever. Ya know, if you know what I mean…" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, but before she could say more a fist came out of nowhere and hit her arm. "Ow! Jeez, you should go into boxing or something with that arm!"

"If you don't shut up I will throw you out of this train covered in barbeque sauce and leave you for the wolves, understand?" Jill commented more seriously than one would expect.

Hailey, most-likely used to these verbal threats, just sat back and smiled. "That's quite unlikely." she said.

Jill looked taken back. "What? You don't think I'll throw you off of the train? Because I wi-"

"No," interrupted her friend, "I totally believe that, but where do you expect to get enough barbeque sauce to completely cover me? I mean, come on. That's not gonna happen."

"You're ridiculous." commented Isabella as she stalked to the other side of the train car.

"I'm just predicting the inevitable romance that will- OW!" I watched as the two girls wrestled and Jill reached for the latch on the door of the car. "No, Jill! Seriously! I'm sorry! Don't open the door!" pleaded Hailey.

Jill took this as an acceptable apology, and stopped attacking her friend. After the blonde retreated back against a wall and began to glare at her friend, Hailey rubbed her arm where Jill had hit her and muttered, "Jeez, you're so violent. I don't know why Nico is in love with you…"

I finally realized I should probably be participating in this conversation, so I added in, "I'm not in love with her!"

"You don't have to hide it! It's okay!" blurted out Riley from the corner. He seemed to be having a wonderful time; he was rocking back and forth from laughter as his face turned red.

"I'm not hiding anything!" I defended.

"Except for your mysterious dark past and your secret love for Jill, right?" questioned Hailey, leaning forward excitedly until she was practically sitting on me. She sounded as if she were interviewing a character from her favorite soap opera.

I scooted away from her. "Uh, no?"

"Uh, yes." she remarked.

"Look," I explained, "I'm just naturally a really heroic person. I mean, saving kittens from trees and catching thieves who steal old ladies' bags are like two of my favorite things to do. So when a damsel in distress-"

"I was not in distress!" shouted out Jill.

"Yes you were." I quickly replied, "Back to my story, when a damsel in distress was standing right next to me, what other choice did I have but to save the day like always?"

"Oh, like you were helping anyone. I would've been fine." Jill crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly.

"You would've been diced into a million pieces, then piled into a taco shell and eaten for dinner!" I yelled back at her.

Isabella commented from the other side of the car as she read her book on ancient civilizations. "Harpies don't eat tacos, you idiot."

"Santa Claus isn't real, you idiot." I counteracted.

The girl's jaw dropped. "What? TAKE THAT BACK!" cried out the little girl. "Jill! He's just being stupid, right? Isn't he lying, Jill? Tell him he's a big fat ugly liar!" she screamed.

By this point Riley was rolling around on the floor, tears running down his face as he clutched his sides laughing.

Jill looked like she couldn't think of a right answer. "Uh, we'll talk about this later, Izzy."

"Jill!" cried her sister.

The older girl sighed and held her hand to her head. "Hailey, why don't you take Izzy into the next car? It's getting late; we should all be getting to bed." Isabella looked like everything that she ever knew in her life had just turned out to be a lie.

"Sure thing!" enthusiastically shouted Hailey. She grabbed the young girl's hand. "Come on, Izzy. Your best gal pal Hailey is gonna tell you a bedtime story."

"I don't want a-"

"There once was a beautiful princess named Princess Hailey. She was the daughter of King Apollo, who was definitely the most awesome of all kings. One day, Princess Hailey was outside singing a lovely song, when all creatures, big and small, crowded around to hear her mellifluous voice." She continued the story as she opened the door that led to another car. Dragging Izzy along with her, the story faded out until we (thankfully) couldn't hear it anymore.

When they had gone, it was just Riley, Jill, and I left in the car.

After a short moment of silence, Jill leaned over and smacked me.

"Hey! You said you weren't gonna hit me!" I complained.

"That was before you had even opened your mouth. If you're healthy enough to be arrogant and sarcastic, you're definitely healthy enough to be punched." She argued. "Plus, you totally just ruined my little sister's childhood." While her expression was hard, her voice held hints of laughter.

She was nearly out the door when she turned around and faced me again.

"One more thing…" she said hesitantly as she walked back towards me.

Defensively I scooted back closer to the wall. "Don't even try to kick me, Jill." I warned her.

To my surprise, she leaned over and quickly kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks, for… you know." With this, she hurried out of the cart, leaving me dazed and confused. I could feel a blush creeping up my neck and my face felt like it was a thousand degrees within seconds.

"Duddee," stated Riley from the other side of the cart as he nodded his head approvingly, "That was…unexpected."

Yes. That _was _unexpected.

**(Esta es una línea)**

"You have _got _to be kidding me." I found myself saying the next morning as Hailey tried to convince me to jump out of the train and onto the hard dirt below. When we had gotten on the train (which I didn't remember, considering I was unconscious, slumped over Riley's shoulder) Hailey had overheard the conductor saying it was only a day long drive; which meant they would be unloading the train that day and I'm sure they wouldn't be so understanding if they found five teenagers hitching a ride in one of the cars. Which left us two options: get caught and go to jail, or jump out and take our chances with the wilderness.

Hailey continued trying to convince us. "It's quick, and there's a 50% chance you'll be totally unharmed besides a few bruises and scratches!"

"And what's the other 50%?" asked Riley.

"Oh, nothing too horrible." she said nonchalantly, "Ya know, that you'll break a few bones, get your skin rubbed against the gravel until you're unrecognizable as a human being, get pulled under the train wheels and flattened like a pancake, or possibly hit your head and die on impact with the ground."

"Oh, yes, none of those are too horrible." Jill commented. While all morning she had stayed cool and collected, I had began to blush every time I looked at her. It was ridiculous, considering she had kissed me on the cheek last summer. Then again, I hadn't seen her for a year after that.

"Glad to know you understand! Now, ready?" asked Hailey happily.

I looked at her. "Are you serious? We're seriously doing this?"

"Yeah! Come on! It'll be fun! A great story to tell your kids!" She had such a persuasive tone in her voice that if she asked me to eat a jar of nails because it would make me seem manly I probably would've considered it.

"You mean the time this psychopathic girl forced me to jump off of a train when my arm was cut open and severely infected?" I asked.

"No, the time this really amazing girl saved your sorry butt by helping you travel across the country for free!" she punched my shoulder in a friendly matter.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah, silly me." And before I could say anything else, the girl had jumped out of the train, tumbled a little, stood up, and then cheered as she jumped up and down, urging us on.

And so, one by one, we jumped off of the train, finding safety in the dirt and grass that lay below. Dirt stained our shirts and we all had a few scratches, but we were relatively unharmed just as Hailey predicted. Hearing the train zoom past us and seeing the sparks as the wheels rolled along the track made me cringe when I thought what would've happened if one of us was pulled under. I don't think my father would appreciate it much if my death was due to clumsily falling in the path of a train and being crushed.

"So," Jill asked as she lazily traced her name in the dirt, "what now?"


	17. Readers, Welcome to the Verita Awards

Hiya.

Look, it's one of those really annoying author's notes again!

I'm not even gonna attempt to explain why I haven't updated in like a month, because I really don't have an answer besides the fact that my life is kinda hectic at the moment.

BUT GUESS WHAT!

Today's St. Patrick's Day!

Just kidding. Well, it is St. Patrick's Day, but that's not what I'm talking about.

MY BIRTHDAY IS ON MONDAY! Woo! I shall officially be 14 years of age. So, do you guys wanna give me an awesome, super fantastic, amazing birthday present, and in return I shall give you a new chapter?

You do?

Great!

Okay, here's what you should do if you wanna make me super dooper happy:

1) Go to www . fanmortals . webs . com

2) You will find yourself on a mystical website specifically for the Verita Awards. Vote for Being 14 is Tough! It's under "Best Original Character" and "Best Romance" (I didn't quite understand that one, because Being 14 is Tough barely has any romance in it at all…). They announce the winners on my birthday, and wouldn't that just be an awesome birthday present for me? Yes, yes it would.

If I win, I promise to update 2-3 new chapters by March 28th, a week after the winners are announced. Doesn't that sound exciting?

Mhm, really, super exciting. A few of you have already told me that you voted, so a special thanks to you for voting for me without having to have me send you a mass message.

And I'm sure you're probably all really mad that this isn't a new chapter, but just think of the future! 2-3 NEW CHAPTERS! HOW EXCITING!

The voting ends on March 20th, so try to vote before then!

I LOVE YOU ALL!

-BrightBlueConverse

(P.S. Happy early birthday to me, happy early birthday to me, happy early birthday dear meee, happy early birthday to me!)


	18. Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

**Hey guys, I know I said I'd have 2-3 chapters by Monday, but I sent most of you a PM saying publishing wasn't working. I heard it was happening to a lot of people, but thanks to Annabeth Supporter, I GOT THIS UP! YAY FOR HER! So so sorry about how late it is :(**

**I WON! I WON I WON I WON! Surprisingly enough, Being 14 is Tough won for the romance section even though it really doesn't have romance in it… BUT WHO CARES? Woo! That was the best birthday present evahh! So thank you so so so much to everyone who voted! And to everyone who tried to vote, but kept getting sent to that "Oops! Looks like we have a sneaky one!" (The key was to press that little period thing). OH! And happy birthday to… **

**Manser77**

**HiThereSmiley**

**Annabeth Supporter**

**NoWordsDiscribeMe**

**We're all March buddies XD**

**Okay, so here's the first out of two or three new chapters. It's kinda short though, I'm warning you now. The next one should be longer.**

**Disclaimer: Let's just put it this way: If I owned this series, it would have a lot more Nico in it**

"Can't you just shadow travel us out of here?" whined Riley after about an hour of walking under the hot sun along the railroad tracks.

I sighed irritably. "Oh, I'm sorry." I said sarcastically, "I didn't even think of that! Wow, can you find me a shadow that's big enough for four teenagers and a demonic little girl to fit in?" that earned me a shout of complaint from the "demonic little girl", but no reply from Riley. "No? Oh, obviously not considering there _are no shadows!"_

It was true. For as far as we could see, there was just sandy dirt surrounding the railroad tracks. Getting a ride on the train had managed to get us somewhere. Unfortunately, that somewhere happened to be the absolute middle of nowhere.

The sun was painfully hot; seeping right through my shirt and warming my skin to the point I had desperately wished someone had brought sunscreen. I could feel my skin burning, especially where the protection of my t-shirt ended and my skin was bare and vulnerable to Apollo's evil ways. Riley was wearing a Red Sox hat that was protecting his head and face, while Jill was holding up her jacket over her head at a position that it also covered her younger sister. Hailey, on the other hand, had closed her eyes and thrown her head back as she happily basked in the sun. After just an hour of walking, she already seemed two shades tanner while the rest of us were practically drowning in our sweat.

Stupid children of Apollo.

I had felt like one of those explorers lost in the deserts of Egypt as they searched for the tomb of King Tut, but ended up wandering around, dehydrated and badly sunburned until they eventually were killed off from dehydration or just some random poisonous snake attack. Then again, I wasn't anywhere near Egypt and I had only been walking for an hour, so I didn't think I had much to worry about…

Sighing, I looked desperately for any sign of darkness that I could use to cool myself down, but the only shadow I saw was my own. It was too close to noon for me to have a big enough shadow to transport through, sadly. I wished I could use the small shadow I was casting to my advantage; pick it up off of the ground and use it to shield my body. Better yet, I wished I could expand it, and make it just big enough to get the five of us out of there and to somewhere nice and cold.

"And did you know that the day Julius Caesar died – which was, by the way, March 15th, 44 BC – his wife warned him th-"

And just then, as she was talking about the death of the Roman dictator, I started thinking about something that some people may classify as crazy. If I could manipulate shadows, use them to transport me to any place I wanted to go, why couldn't I manipulate them in other ways? Make them bigger or smaller, perhaps?

Seconds after thinking about it, I quietly laughed to myself at the ridiculous idea. If I had more super awesome powers, I think I would've discovered them years ago. Still, a part of my mind continued to stare at my shadow hopefully, waiting for it to magically expand.

Isabella continued her lecture on Julius Caesar. "And that's when he said '_Et tu, Brute?' _which is Latin and roughly translates into-"

"Mmmm… don't you just love the sun?" happily interrupted Hailey as she skipped and twirled along the path, earning glares from the rest of us.

"No." snapped Jill.

"Not even a little bit." I told her.

"Actually, I hate it." added in Riley.

"Well, you are all missing out!" yelled Hailey, though the smile was soon back on her face.

The sweat that had been dripping down my face for a while was now nearly unbearable; it found its way into my eyes and burned like Hades. I swiped at it frequently, but it still managed to make my eyes irritated. Everybody, besides Hailey of course, was withering in the harsh heat. Even Isabella, who was practically being carried by Jill, seemed like she was about to pass out.

We walked on for another mile or so. Though none of us knew where we were going, we just continued walking along the railroad track. Hopefully it would lead us to some sign of civilization sometime soon. Hopefully, there would be another Taco Bell wherever we ended up.

Sand had slipped into my sneakers and socks and irritated my feet the way only sand can do.

To entertain himself, Riley had made flowers pop up wherever we went, so that there was a trail of daisies following our path. Meanwhile, Hailey had tried to play twenty questions with us. Unfortunately for her, nobody was answering her questions.

"What's your favorite color?" she happily asked.

Silence.

"Okay, what's your favorite… band?"

More silence.

"Uh… weirdest piercing you have?"

It was pretty obvious nobody answered that one.

"Here's one for Riley: What's your favorite flower?"

Though he looked like he was at war with himself, debating whether or not to answer, he stuck with the rest of us and kept his mouth quiet.

"Hmph! Fine! What is your… worst fear?"

As predicted, nobody said a word.

"If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"

I thought of camp. Though cooler, it was still pretty darn hot there. Then I thought of someplace cold: Antarctica. Though, while I wasn't one to complain about the temperature, I don't think I would do so well in -20 degree temperature with a blizzard to go along with it.

And then it hit me:

The Underworld.

Cool, dark, and damp; I was nearly salivating at the thought of being in my father's kingdom again. Though I was there just the day before, it had felt like a million years ago and I was only able to enjoy it for a short amount of time before I had woken up. While there was the unappealing stench of sulfur that always seemed to hang in the air, as well as the annoyingly clingy ghosts and spirits that followed you around, I would happily retreat into the Underworld for a few hours (or days) to cool off. Absorbed in my fantasy thoughts, I had no idea what was going on until I heard gasps and screams of shock from the rest of the group.

Zoning back into reality, I focused on my surroundings for just enough time to see a large black mass encircle itself around our feet.

And then we fell.

**(Hey guys, Robert's out sick, but I'm his cousin James and I'll be taking his place as the line today)**

We fell.

And fell, and fell, and fell.

And then, we fell some more.

Basically, we were falling for a really long time. Darkness surrounded us, and for a moment even _I _was terrified. Screams of terror rang in my ears, and I didn't know whether to be horrified or relieved when I realized they were the cries of my friends. We fell freely for hours, arms and legs dangling and flying around us, and all we could do was scream and pray for it to finally end. But then, and this is the exciting part so you may want to hold onto your hats, we stopped falling and hit the ground hardly with a loud _thump._

Momentarily dazed, I remained on my back where I had landed and stared up at the dark ceiling. The darkness came along with a cold chill in the air that seemed to into my bones within seconds. The heat that just seconds ago had felt like a suffocating nuisance now seemed like a welcoming summer breeze. I felt engulfed in darkness, but it was somehow lighter there than it was when we were falling. There was a strangely familiar feeling about the whole place, but the fall had knocked my senses off balance, and I couldn't quite place where we had landed. There was a strange smell in the air, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

A loud, horrifying, agonizing sound that sent shivers throughout my body echoed throughout the area. It sounded like the pitiful cry of a dying animal. Scared to see what had produced that whimper, I hesitated getting up. When I did, it was much too quickly and I was immediately dizzy, but stood up anyway and wobbled over until I found the source of a continuous moaning that was heard.

I was horrified to see a tangle of blonde hair, an unnatural and very painful looking body position, and lots and lots of blood.


	19. Nurse Nancy

**YAY! LOOK AT ME! I'm still followed through on my promise even though that obnoxious little detour came up :P I feel I deserve a prize. **

**In response to your reviews: Wow. You guys have a lot of hatred for Isabella, don't you?**

**I saw my school's musical last night. It was good. Just felt like sharing that little piece of information with the rest of you.**

**Disclaimer: I own numerous things, but none of them are a New York Times bestselling book series.**

Once I made the realization of what was going on, fear quickly pumped through my veins (is that possible?).

Not for myself, but rather for the bloody girl with the broken body lying in front of me. The sheer terror of the whole situation had sharpened my senses, and the rotten egg smell became very distinct to me as I realized just where I was: the very place I was thinking about before the whole disaster had started.

From when I first saw the body, I had assumed it was Jill, but as I looked at it closer I saw it was much too small to belong to the 15 year old girl. And as horrible as it was, I was slightly relieved when I saw Jill run over to the body; sobs shook her body as she leaned down and gently moved the hair away from her sister's face.

"Izzy!" she cried out in despair. She had thought she was dead. I had known better, but for some reason my body refused to walk over to her and tell her that her sister was indeed alive.

The closer I got, the less extreme the injuries looked. I saw a few broken bones, a couple of cuts, and a few scratches here and there. Practically nothing compared to what I had thought at first glance.

With emotions clouding Jill's mind and actions, she hadn't even thought to check the girl's pulse. Hanging over her body, she cried and tried to shake Isabella awake. Hailey and Riley stood to the back; Riley was awkwardly trying to comfort Hailey as she cried into his chest.

Spirits, excited by the sudden action, were crowding around the girls now. On top of thinking she just lost her sister, Jill seemed positively terrified of the ghosts.

I finally found my voice as I waved away the spirits. "Alright, shoo! Go away! There's nothing to see here." Most of the ghosts faded away, but a few remained. Ignoring them, I walked over to Jill and Izzy. I saw her injuries must not have been as serious as I had thought, considering her life energy still seemed pretty intact. She definitely wasn't dead. She just appeared that way.

I leaned down next to Jill and hesitantly tapped her on the shoulder. She glanced at me for a minute, and then went back to staring at her sister.

Wondering how I was going to tell her that her sister was just unconscious, I was relieved when a sudden moan came from the smaller girl, along with a twitch of her foot that made everybody gasp (that is, except me of course). "Izzy?" hesitantly questioned Jill, filled with a sudden hope. "Izzy?"

At first, all was silent and you could see Jill's face drop again, but soon another louder moan came from the girl.

Bursting into tears again, Jill hugged her sister as gently as she possibly could.

"Ow…" complained Isabella so quietly that if I hadn't have been sitting inches from her I wouldn't have heard it.

Regaining her usual wit, Jill began barking out commands. "Hailey! Get over here and see if you can help!"

Hailey came over without complaint, but looked unsure. "I can't mend broken bones, Jill…I would be able to set them, but I don't see anything I could use here. Where are we, anyway?" She looked around at the scenery. "Hell?" The brunette leaned down and placed her hands on the open wounds of Isabella; quietly chanting as she tried to heal the girl.

A hand fed ambrosia to Izzy, and she happily swallowed it. Within a few minutes, she was looking much better; Isabella attempted to sit up, but when she put pressure on her bad arm she hissed in pain and fell back down.

"Nico!" cried out Jill, "Do something!"

"What! Me? What am I supposed to do!"

She seemed unsure of what to tell me. "I don't know; take her to a hospital or something!"

Another moan came from the girl. Though going to a hospital would only lead to questions and suspiciousness, I knew there would be no arguing with Jill. Then again, I couldn't just leave them all in the Underworld, and I sure as Hades couldn't bring all four of them with me.

Jill seemed to notice my doubt. "We'll be fine! Just take her, get her treated, and come right back!"

"You don't even know where you are! It's dangerous here!" I shouted back at her.

"Oh, we're obviously in the Underworld, Nico. Don't doubt my intelligence! And don't worry about us; we're fine. We'll be right here when you get back. Just go!" Her eyes were red and puffy, and tears were streaking down her face. She lacked the confidence that she usually carried with her, leaving her body limp and scared. She was as vulnerable as I had ever, and probably would ever, see her.

"Stay _right here." _I commanded them. They all nodded their heads quickly.

Sighing, I acquiesced, awkwardly picked up the girl, and calmly walked into a shadow and out of the Underworld.

**(****¡****Hola! Me llamo Alejandro, y yo soy una ****línea)**

I ended up in an alleyway in some city. Even though I was out of the Underworld, I could still smell the sulfer that had clung to my clothes and skin. Apparently, Isabella could smell it too. "You smell bad." she said as I walked onto the street and into the hospital. I guess she was feeling good enough to insult me.

In TV shows and movies, the emergency room is filled with excitement, gurneys rushing in every direction, and doctors performing CPR as their patients gushed blood from extreme accidents. When I walked into the emergency room at Saint Katherine's, there were just two old men playing Sudoku in the corner and a nurse standing behind the desk. I must say, I was a bit disappointed.

You would think that if a kid with blood stains on his shirt that smelled like rotten eggs came in carrying a little girl with obvious broken bones, there would be doctors and nurses rushing to get them treated.

Besides one of the men thinking out loud about his grocery list, there was no reaction to our entrance. Awkwardly, I walked over to the desk. The woman standing behind the desk was wearing ugly salmon colored scrubs that didn't do anything to compliment her hideous perm. The nurse (her name tag read "Nancy") was too busy with whatever she was doing on the computer to notice me.

I cleared my throat loudly, which earned me a sigh from Nancy the nurse. "Can I help you?" she replied in a monotone voice.

"Uh, yeah. My, uh, little sister here fell from a tree and broke a few bones…" I explained. To go along with the story, Isabella moaned loudly.

Another sigh from Nurse Nancy. "Alright, you'll need to fill out this paperwork here before the doctors can see her." With this, she plopped a packet onto the counter. I glanced at the first page. It asked for the insurance company, social security number, name, address, date of birth, phone number, as well as numerous other complicated things I didn't know the answers to.

I tried to scoot my way out of the papers. "She's really in a lot of pain, I don't think we have time for this."

She looked at me like I was an annoying little boy that she was being forced to watch."Well even if I let you through right now, you would have to wait for the x-ray room to be set up. That will take an hour. Then you'll have to wait for a doctor to come and take the x-rays. Then, you'll have to wait for the x-rays to develop. Then, you'll have to wait fo-"

"Okay, nevermind. We'll just leave." I said as I made a move for the door.

"Nicooo.." complained Isabella.

"It's okay, Izzy. You can just live the rest of your life with severely deformed limbs. I'm sure in twenty years that'll be totally cool."

"Look, kid, I don't need your attitude." said the nurse.

"Oh, no worries, we're about to leave. But first, little Izzy here needs to use the restroom, so we'll just be taking a short detour." Saying this, I walked through a big set of doors the surely led somewhere.

"Hey! Kid! You're not allowed to go-" her voice was shut off as the doors closed behind us.

"You're gonna get us in trouble!" yelled Isabella, using all of her energy.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just leave you here so you can self-heal and go back to find everybody else in a few months when your bones mend! That's a great idea! I'm sure by then, everybody, including your sister, will still be totally safe and not eaten or killed! Wow, you are just such a smartie today!"

She made an irritated face, but didn't say anymore.

We walked (well, technically I walked and she was carried) down a long white, sterile hallway that made us look especially filthy. Soon, somebody tapped my shoulder and I turned around to face a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. I took a wild guess and said that he was a doctor.

"Hello, are you two lost?" he asked politely. He was a fairly tall man (he had a few inches on me), with a cleanly-shaved face and a kind look in his eyes. I felt suddenly self-conscious of my raggedy appearance, but shrugged it off and answered the man.

"Actually, yes. We just came from the x-ray room, and the doctor said to wait for him to go get the… uh… casting materials but he was taking a long time so we went looking for him."

"The casting materials?" he asked.

"Yes. For her, uh, cast…" Embarrassed by my awkward answer, I looked down at my feet rather than up at the man.

"Well, alright." he said, "I really don't have anything better to do, and this sure beats giving some old man a sponge bath, so I'll fix you up with a cast right now."

"That'd be great!" I said a little too cheerfully for my normal self. In an attempt to try to cover it up, I coughed loudly.

"Alright, just follow me. Hey, what doctor did you say was treating her? I could probably figure out where he is, if you want." The doctor said as he led us down the same hallway.

"Oh… uh… his name was, uhm," I struggled for a name to use, "Doctor Klark."

"Doctor Klark?" suspiciously asked the doctor. "That's strange; I don't think I've ever met a Doctor Klark…"

"Oh, heh, yeah… strange." I said.

We followed the doctor into a large room (everything was white, of course) where he gently took Izzy from me and sat her down on a metal table.

"What bones did he say you had broken, sweetheart?" the doctor asked.

"My radius and fibula." replied Izzy without missing a beat, thought I don't think she enjoyed being called "sweetheart". I was glad he hadn't asked me, because I wouldn't have had a clue of what to say.

The doctor began to sterilize Isabella's arm and leg. She winced in pain, but didn't show too much discomfort. I'm sure that's one thing being a demigod has taught her. "Jeez, that must've been some accident. And hey, where are you guys' parents?"

Since I couldn't think of any other good excuses, I said, "They, uh, are at work."

He looked surprised. "And they didn't come when you called them?"

"Nope." I shook my head quickly, "Realllyyy busy. They're, uh, accountants. You know how busy those accountants get…"

"Yes… I suppose they do get busy…" he said as he began to wrap a cotton band around her arm. "Alright, what color cast do you want, sweetie? We have pink, blue, purple, green, and white."

Expecting her to go with the boring white, I was surprised when she answered "pink".

"Sure thing!" the doctor said, "Now, let me go get that and I'll be right back!" With a large smile, he exited the room, leaving the two of us alone.

After a moment of awkward silence, Isabella made a comment. "He's nice."

"Yup." I answered quickly, and there was another silence.

"Is Santa Clause really not real?" blurted out Izzy quickly.

Caught off guard, I asked, "What?"

"Is Santa Clause real or not?" she repeated, this time with a bit more irritation in her voice.

"Uh… no." I answered bluntly.

She sighed and shook her head. "I knew it. Ever since I was a toddler, I questioned the idea of an obese man traveling across the world overnight with his flying reindeer."

"Aren't there weirder things that you've seen than a fattie old man flying on a sleigh?" I asked, because I know I've seen much weirder things.

"Well, yes." she admitted, "But he supposedly lives in the North Pole, which has temperatures ranging from -45 degrees Fahrenheit to -15 degrees Fahrenheit. It's highly unlikely for a human to be able to survive in those temperatures."

"Well then I guess he's not real."

"I guess not…" She looked like she was about to say something else, but then stopped herself. When I didn't respond, she tried again. "Hey, Nico. There's something I wanted to tel-"

The opening of the door interrupted whatever Isabella was going to say. "Alright, here it is!" said the doctor as he strolled in carrying the hot pink plaster.

**(I already had one line with a name in this chapter, so this one will be nameless. Ooohh… mysterious ;) Who wants to think of a super awesome name for this line?)**

An hour later, after Izzy had gotten her cuts properly covered and her bones set into place with a cast, we were "calling our parents to get the insurance card" (AKA: getting out of there before anybody noticed us leaving).

Slipping out of a window on the first floor, we were back in the alleyway. Picking her up was a lot more difficult this time with two clunky casts and a pair of crutches to go along with the small girl. But I still scooped her up and walked into a shadow, re-entering the Underworld.

I made sure to come to the exact place we had left, where we would surely see Jill, Hailey, and Riley unharmed and awaiting our return. We came to the same place, but the three kids were nowhere to be found.

I swore loudly, placed Izzy down with her crutches, and stalked off. Even though there was a much better chance they were involuntarily moved, I was still mad at them for not staying where I had told them to stay.

"Where are you going?" asked Izzy as she hobbled along on her crutches behind me.

"I'm going to find everybody, of course."

"Wait, Nico! Wait up!" she yelled. It was obvious she wasn't used to the crutches, and she was having a hard time catching up with my long strides. Sighing, I stopped walking until she caught up.

"Thanks."

"Just try to walk faster. It's dangerous down here, and they don't know what they're doing or where they're going." I told her.

She rolled her eyes at me. "No, I meant thanks for taking me to the hospital, and stuff." She said it awkwardly, like thanking people wasn't something she does often and wasn't comfortable doing.

Taken back by her sudden thanks, I didn't know how to respond. "Wow. I think that's the first time you've ever said something even remotely nice to me."

"I'm still mad at you." she said.

I threw my hands up. "But _why? _Why on earth do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you." she bluntly said, "I just don't like you too much."

With this, she continued to hobble alongside me but stayed quiet.

With every passing moment, I became more and more worried as to what happened to them. Were they killed? Did they wander off and get lost? Were they scared to death? Did they fall into the River Styx and die? I desperately wanted to shadow travel around until I found the three of them, but if I left Isabella here alone she would probably get eaten, and Jill would most-likely be super mad at me for a really long time.

Then again, there was of course one person who always knew what was going on in the Underworld. Maybe if I asked them, they would kindly tell me exactly where my dearest friends were and we could go on with our lives (that is, if they're not already dead).

Sighing, I picked up Isabella along with her crutches and walked towards the nearest shadow I saw.

"Where are we going?" she questioned.

"We're gonna go take a trip to the Lord of the Underworld." And with that, I stepped into the shadow.


	20. Undead, Undead, and Even More Undead

**First and foremost, let me say that your line names were beautiful, and at some point I promise I will use each and every one of them. I putt… 6 names in here today! I'm going in order of reviews, so the first who reviewed get their name in first.**

**And Fredrick Finkleberg got its own line because it made me giggle XD**

**Alright, I have no excuse why this chapter is so late. I was just busy with school. And lazy.**

**Disclaimer: I've said this like 40 times. I don't own anything :P**

Isabella was terrified.

Why? I have no idea. I guess there was something about the whole idea of meeting the god of death that was unsettling to her.

While shadow traveling is usually tiring and tedious for me, in the Underworld it's much more refreshing and a whole lot easier. With shadows virtually everywhere, I didn't have to walk around for a half-hour looking for an entryway to the shadow world.

Isabella and I were at Hade's palace in no time (much to her dismay).

Once we got there, we were greeted by a duo of American Civil War soldiers (or at least their skeletons), with their guns at the ready as we approached.

Isabella looked like she was about to pass out from fear just from the thought of meeting Hades, and I'm sure the undead warriors weren't easing her feelings. Though I'm sure she hadn't meant to and would surely curse herself later for it, she was clinging to my side as if I were her lifeline.

I approached the soldiers, and they raised their guns (though I'm no wimp, the image of a gun being pointed at my face made me take a small step back in fear). Hiding every emotion I had besides cockiness (which, like a loyal friend, was always there for me), I took another step towards the undead. "Hello, kind gentlemen." I said more mockingly than respectfully. Their position did not waver. "Alrighty then. Well, I'm kind of a VIP around here, so if you would just move over so I could get through, it would be greatly appreciated." They remained where they were.

One of them attempted to say something that I'm sure was very fascinating; but sadly enough without lips or a tongue, the words were lost.

"Yeah, alright, this is very fun and all but I'm afraid I really have to get through, so…" I attempted to slip past them, but they countered my move and were blocking the door immediately. "Alright, be difficult. Have it your way!" I grabbed Izzy's arm, and before she could yell at me we had shadow traveled inside the palace and were on our way to see Hades. Fortunately, she had thought to hang onto her crutches before we left, or I would've been stuck carrying her the whole way. Unfortunately, she wasn't used to the cast on her leg and was sent off balance as we landed, resulting in her going tumbling away once we arrived.

She cursed loudly (and I'm sure if her older sister were there, Isabella would've been in a boatload of trouble), but stood up and wobbled over, glaring at me all the while. While I thought she was going to yell at me for being so insensitive and stupid and blah blah blah, she just took a glance around the hallway and said "Your dad has horrible taste."

Many would agree.

The palace was decorated in some kind of mixture between dark medieval and gothic, and of course there were hints of Greek décor here and there. Shelves ran throughout the entire castle, displaying an plethora of skulls from throughout history (many of which belonged to souls Hades had slain himself).

Candles mounted onto holders on the walls provided dim light that was nearly devoured by the darkness that was always present in the Underworld. If I my eyesight was any worse, I wouldn't have been able to see five feet in front of me.

The whole place basically looked like the lair of some kind of evil wizard from a few centuries ago.

Personally, I kinda liked it…

"Regardless of the décor, we should probably go look for Hades." I told her. The expression on her face and the way she practically dragged herself along let out an unspoken "Do we have to?" Unfortunately for her, my confident strides and cocky demeanor answered with a "Yes, yes we do."

**(Hello! I am a line and my name is Giovanni Shaynaynay Helga Arnold. GREETINGS FROM SWEDEN!)**

It wasn't long before we found Hades' throne room. It could be just because my sense of direction is so accurate that I guided us throughout the long maze of hallways and straight to the throne room. (It could also be that there were signs throughout the palace with arrows saying "Hades' Throne Room: this way.", but let's not dwell on that small little detail.)

When I walked in, I expected one of a few things to happen:

1) We would quickly be ushered out by the undead, and told Hades isn't there at the moment (aka: He's there but just doesn't particularly want to see us).

2) We would be attacked by those same undead and I would be forced to use my extremely impressive fighting skills to fend them off.

3) Isabella would see Hades and get so scared that she may indeed, as you may say, wet herself.

What I did _not _expect was to see Hades sloppily dining on a rack of barbeque ribs and lounging in his throne in a very ungodly way.

"Ah, Nico. I had expected you would be arriving here soon." He said nonchalantly. The undead warriors, who usually act as guards, were now acting as what can only be described as servants. They were serving him the meat, and after every bite he took they would dab at his mouth with a cotton napkin, wiping the excess sauce off of his face.

"And how exactly did you know that?"

"Nico, I am a god! I am all knowing! There's that, and the fact that my soldiers brought in that girl you fancy so much a little while ago. I figured you would be here soon enough to play hero."

"What girl?" curiously wondered Isabella.

"Nobody." I answered, maybe a little too quickly to get past suspicion.

"Ahh, and who is this exactly? Is she Ceberus' dinner? Oh, how positively delightful of you, Nico. You know Ceberus loves it when we bring him humans for his meals. But this one's a little small, don't you think? He may accidentally swallow one of her bones!"

If there was one point Izzy looked as if she were about to pee her pants, this was that point.

"Not quite. This is Isabella, daughter of Athena." I explained.

"Oh, your wife's sis-"

"I don't have a wife!" I explained, and not for the first time.

"You two still didn't tie the knot? By gosh, boy! What are you waiting for?" he asked, exhasperated.

"My twenty-fifth birthday, maybe?"

"Ah, that's much too far away! You think she's going to save herself for you? Think again! Some strapping young lad who has killed much bigger monsters than you is going to come around one day, sweep her off her feet, and before you know it you're going to be all alone with nothing but a bunch of skeletons for company!"

"Uh, I think I have plenty of time." I told him.

He shook his head, like _I _was the crazy one in this situation. "I'm not sure, Nico. She's a smart one, that girl of yours. She already figured out how to escape three times since I trapped-"

"Wait, you're holding them captive?"

He seemed surprised by my surprise. "Well, yes. How else was I supposed to hold them?"

"Uh, comfortably?" I suggested.

"Could you imagine what that would do to my reputation?" he exclaimed, "Who's going to fear me, the might Lord of the Underworld, if they hear I let three demigods lounge in my palace, hm? What if I had my butler take their coats, and maybe make them some nice hot tea? While I'm at it, I might as well put out a few magazines for their leisure! Maybe even serve them some fancy cubed cheese! How does that sound?"

"That depends. Will there be crackers provided with the cheese?"

He let out a very loud and dramatic sigh. "If there's one thing you've inherited from me, besides your good looks, of course, it's your ability to annoy somebody until they're prepared to throw you into the mouth of a hellhound just to shut you up."

"…Thank you?"

"Yes, yes, your appreciation has been noted. Now, go retrieve your obnoxious friends. All their shouting is rather annoying." He waved us away, and took a large bite out of his rib. On our way out, he started to mimic the three demigods he was currently holding captive using an annoyingly high pitched voice. "_Oh, help me! Help me! The evil god has trapped me in the dungeon! Oh, woe is me! Blah blah blah! I'm a big crybaby!"_

Once I was about to close the door behind me, my father _discretely _("PSSTTT! NICO! COME HERE FOR A SECOND! AND LEAVE THE FIVE YEAR OLD IN THE HALLWAY!") called me back into his throne room.

"Yes?" I asked curiously.

He leaned forward, like he was about to share some big secret with me. "Alright, here's the deal. So you can look good in front of that girl and possibly speed up the marriage process, I'm gonna do you a huge favor."

"And what would that be…?" I had decided then that if he gave me an engagement ring, I would never talk to him again.

He had a maniacal smile on his face as he whispered his plan to me. "Just as you rescue them from the dungeon, I'm going to release an army of my undead soldiers after you!" he said, absolutely delighted by his idea.

"What?" I shouted, "How would that help me?"

"Oh, you can run around, showing off, impressing that girl, blah blah blah. It's really every hero's fantasy; you're fortunate enough to have such a wonderful father that he would do these great favors for you." He sat back, content with his idea.

I stared at him in disbelief. "You call sending an army after me a _favor_?" Could be possibly be that delusional?

He seemed confused at my dismay. "Yes; what would you call it?"

"Uh, a death sentence?"

"Oh, nonsense!" he waved his hand, "Make me proud now, son!"

"Wait-!" I tried to shout out more, but soldiers were already ushering me out of the room.

Once the doors were shut and we were on our way to the dungeon, Isabella, who had been quiet nearly that whole conversation, commented, "Your dad is annoying and kinda insane." she said, "Just like you."

**(Hellooo! I am a different line! And my name is Fredrick Finkleberg! Ahoy mates!)**

It wasn't hard to find the dungeon either. Considering the dungeon was always the creepiest part of the palace, we just followed the scariest hallways until we arrived at the stone fortress. Isabella's metal crutches clanged every time she stepped, so I wasn't surprised when a duo of soldiers ran over to us, guns once again pointed at my face. Before I could say anything a dozen bayonets were on my neck; threatening to pierce the skin and rip my head clean off my shoulders.

But not to worry!

One flick of my wrist and they were all passed out on the floor. Yet another perk to being the Prince of the Underworld.

We passed cell after cell; most of which were inhabited by skeletons. A few held some pretty gruesome looking monsters, and others held some gruesome looking demigods.

It wasn't long before we heard our dearest friends.

"IIII AMMM SITTINGGG! I AM SITTING IN PRISONN! III AM SOOO SADDD; SOO SOO SADDD." Sang a voice from down the hall. Hailey's songs usually described what she was doing at the moment (it gets annoying after an hour of listening to "I am walking! I ammm walking! Walking! Walking! Walking is so fun!"), the lyrics were always horrible, and she screamed more than she sang; and yet she still sounded like she belonged on the radio every time she opened her mouth.

"Hailey?" I shouted.

"NICOOO! That is my friendddd, Nicooo! HEEE HAS COMEE TO SAVE US! HEEE ISS MY NEW BEST FRIENDD!" I heard, and followed the singing straight down the hallway.

Their cells were near the end of the hallways, and the others surrounding theirs were all taken up by century old skeletons.

"Jill!" exclaimed Isabella as she wobbled herself over to her sister's cell.

I leaned against the wall. "I'm considering leaving you guys here as a punishment, you know."

"What did we do?" cried out Hailey.

"Name the _one _instruction I gave you before I left."

"Don't eat yellow snow?" guessed Hailey.

"Wrong."

"Don't talk to strangers, even if they're really nice and are giving out free candy?" she tried.

"Wrong again."

"Don't move from where you left us?" she asked hopefully.

"Correct! And what did you do?"

"We moved from where you left us..?" she asked shamefully.

"Wow," I clapped for her, "you are just on a roll today, Hailey!"

"We're so sorry! We were bored!" she apologized.

I thought about the skeleton army that would surely be surging in within minutes. "I would yell at you all and maybe make you stay here for the night to teach you a lesson, but we really need to get out of here before something bad happens."

Just as I finished, the ground began to shake. "What is that!" cried out Riley, who had been silent this whole time.

"That would be the 'something bad' I was talking about."


	21. Nico di Angelo, Destroyer of Crutches

**First off, no, I am not dead. Nor have I moved to a foreign country where there is no technology available. Things have just been super hectic here. And yes, I know that's no excuse to leave you all hanging, but I was busy with all the end of the year events, family issues, teenage drama, a trip to London, a death in the family, summer activities, and I just started high school. So I wasn't exactly sitting here eating cereal and staring at my wall for the past… 5 or so months. And though it may come as a surprise for you all, angry PMs and reviews did not exactly motivate me to write. Those who don't write for FF may not understand how much time and effort these stories take. Yes, I **_**could **_**quickly rush my chapters and post them on here for you all weekly, but those chapters would, quite frankly, suck. My life doesn't revolve around this story, and I'm hoping that you will all understand that.**

**But, I **_**am **_**really sorry.**

**Disclaimer: My name isn't Rick Riordan. Enough said.**

Within the few seconds I stood gaping at the direction of the approaching army, the skeletons went from 'decently far away' to 'close enough that if you don't get a move on things you will most likely be killed'. And so, as a smart little demigod should, I got a move on things.

Grabbing the set of old keys hanging on the wall, I desperately tried shoving key after key into the cell lock, but they all stubbornly refused to slide into the hole. Trying to stay calm wasn't easy when there were three teenagers panicking and shouting at me to let them out. They had no idea what was going on, but they were panicking nonetheless.

The lock had rejected the entrance of about a dozen keys, and when only one remained I let out a sigh of relief and tried to shove it into the lock, only to come across one small problem: it didn't fit.

"What!" screamed out Jill. "Get us out of here, Nico!" she impatiently tried slamming her body against the barred cell, but to no avail. I regretted taking a glance at the skeleton army, since seeing just how close they were only made me want to scream and run away rather than staying and helping my friends. But unfortunately, if there's one thing I learned at Camp Half-Blood (besides the fact that if you leave your cabin unattended with money, food, or soda in it, children of Hermes _will _steal it) it's that you should never, under any circumstances, abandon your friends.

Throwing the ring of keys to the ground, I grabbed my sword from my backpack. With a few very manly grunts, I slashed at the lock, breaking it and releasing the cell's captives.

Hurriedly, they rushed out and instinctively took a mad dash away from the army that was very visible from down the hallway. Along with the _clack clack clack _of the bones colliding with stone floor as they ran, you could also hear the battle cries of the skeletons.

"Go! Go! Go!" commanded Jill as she ushered Hailey and Riley in front of her. Remembering running wasn't exactly Hailey's strong spot, as well as the fact that being surrounded by darkness usually weakened children of Apollo, I wondered how that was going to turn out. Not to mention the fact that there was a young girl on crutches with a recently broken leg as well. Since Hailey and Riley were already sprinting down the hallway, I felt obliged to be the one to carry Izzy instead of Jill. The older sister stayed with me until I safely had her sister in my arms, and then we both ran off after Hailey and Riley, turning our backs to the skeletons.

We ran through the labyrinth of hallways and passages that made up the Underworld's dungeon, hoping that we would soon break through to the outside. After all of the neat little tricks I had done that day, in addition to have been attacked the day before, _and _carrying somebody the whole time, it was no surprise that I was exhausted seconds after my adrenaline rush had passed by. Besides a slight change in my pace, I showed no signs of my weariness. Though, the fact that Isabella was clinging to me for her life and practically strangling me in the process definitely wasn't helping.

"HEY! THERE'S AN EXIT OVER HERE!" shouted out a voice from in front of us. Kicking up her pace, Jill ran forward and I did my best to keep up with her (and failed miserably). Finally arriving at said exit, I saw the three demigods pounding against a large, metal door that looked as if it hadn't been open since white powdered wigs were actually considered fashionable. Hailey and Jill were both body slamming the door, hoping to get it to budge, but it was no surprise that two 110 pound girls weren't exactly breaking down the door.

We had temporarily confused the skeletons earlier by making lots of twists and turns in the corridors, but they had relocated us and were furiously charging down the hallway as we struggled to open the door. I considered shadow traveling to get out of there, but I was exhausted and scared that I wouldn't be able to go completely through the wall; and the absolute last thing we needed was to be stuck in the middle of a door (considering I had done it more than once in my early shadow traveling days, I knew from experience that it wasn't a very pleasant feeling).

"Come on!" shouted Riley as he yanked at the door handle, though it didn't seem to be very productive.

Turning towards Isabella, I apologized quickly, and then yanked a crutch out from under her arm. "HEY!" she yelled.

Grabbing the crutch, I took a step back and then swung it at the door.

_THWACK!_

I repeatedly slammed the metal crutch against the door. Unfortunately for me, I might as well have been hitting it with a soggy pool noodle. After the crutch was bent and deformed, I threw it to the side and joined Riley in desperately clawing at the old door. Meanwhile, Hailey had resorted to shouting out commands for the door to open.

"OPEN!" she cried out, "Uh… Abra cadabra! Open sesame! Hocus pocus! Criss-cross applesauce!"

"Shut up, Hailey!" yelled Jill. "Just shut up and help open the door!" The blonde grabbed her sister's remaining crutch and started hitting the rust-coated hinges.

A loud cry from down the hall showed us that the skeletons were closer than we had thought. Another dose of panic set in as we all frantically tried to claw our way out of the hallway.

Suddenly, thick, green vines shot through cracks in the door and quickly wrapped themselves around it. Looking as though a dozen thick snakes were trying to squeeze the life out of the door, the vines tightened and the door began to let out horrible grunts and groans. Years of built up dust was released into the air as the door shifted and moved. As it pulled away from the frame, it began to leave a small crack that continued to grow as seconds passed.

Seizing the opportunity, we quickly learned that the crack was just wide enough for a few teenagers to squeeze through with their guts sucked in. One by one, Hailey, Riley, Jill, and I managed to slip through, and then we pulled the younger girl out after us.

Once we were all out, the vines formed a thick braid and squirmed to fill in the crack completely. What seemed like seconds later, the angry cries of the skeletons were heard as they reached the door and tried to break it down. Luckily for us, the door didn't budge and we remained safe. Ignoring our fight or flight reflexes, we had collapsed seconds after escaping, and were trying to catch our breath.

"Riley, that was amazing!" gushed Hailey. I hadn't even realized that the vines were the works of Riley until his girlfriend had mentioned it.

"Yeah, she's right. Nice job." I agreed, patting him on the back.

Riley, who looked as though being praised was a foreign experience to him, just blushed and muttered a "thanks". Hailey looked awfully pleased with herself, probably thinking of how she could now brag that her boyfriend was some kind of Greek hero that saved the whole quest and helped them escape from a dungeon and army of the undead.

I must say, it _was_ pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, the overprotective sister was currently examining Isabella for any harm that might have come to her under the care of yours truly. "Are you alright? No scratches, bruises, or more broken bones?" she asked as she scanned the cast.

"No, I'm fine." Izzy assured her sister, "Besides the fact that you two totally destroyed my crutches!" She shot me a glare before returning her gaze to her sister.

"Sorry…" we both muttered guiltily.

Hailey continued to practically worship her boyfriend, and the two sisters squabbled on. I realized that I could still hear the shouts of the skeletons, and nervously glanced around. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't really want to be lingering around if the skeletons find another way out." I said. They seemed to just realize the fact that we were still in potential danger, and quickly stood up and began to move away from the wall. All but Izzy, who was stuck in her place unless she wanted to crawl or hop on one leg. Not willing to let herself become forgotten, she loudly announced her presence.

"Hellooo? Defenseless young girl over here!" she flailed her arms angrily.

"Nico, you carry her." commanded Jill as she combed her fingers through her hair, working out a tangle.

"What? Why me? I've been carrying her all day!" I complained.

"Exactly. You've had practice." she responded, witty as always.

I put my hands up, not letting her convince me to lug around her sister for the rest of the trip. "No way. _You _carry her. She is your sister, afterall."

"Okay."

"…Wait, what?"

"I said okay. I totally understand that you're just not strong enough to carry her. No worries! If I get tired I'll just pass her on to Riley." she shrugged nonchalantly.

"What? I'm totally strong enough!" I argued.

"Yeah?" she asked doubtfully. "Prove it."

"Fine!" I grabbed her sister from her arms, walked in a wide circle, and victoriously grinned. "Ha!"

She smiled and crossed her arms. "Yup, you showed me!" said the blonde a little too sarcastically for my comfort.

I realized her trick a moment too late as she was prancing off and I was stuck carrying the girl. I muttered a particularly foul word and in return received a slap from the lovely Isabella, who insisted I was being "a butt".

"You're really not too clever, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah; I know."

Grudgingly, I continued to travel carrying the girl.

**(Hello. My name is Klark Nancy Humphry Lineus. But my friends call me Klark Nancy Humphry Lineus.)**

We found ourselves at a gate.

It wasn't a particularly tall gate, nor was attractive or even special in any way. But behind the gate was a scene that was, for lack of a better word, pretty awesome. Never-ending flowers of all shapes and sizes were dotted among the bushes and vines, with colors too vibrant and mesmerizing to exist anywhere else but a godly place. A long, winding pathway split the area into two symmetric gardens. While there was no wind, the flowers and plants twisted and danced in a way that could only be described as hypnotizing. They captured your eye, and then summoned you inside. The enchanting feel of the garden seemed to pull you closer, and subconsciously we were all drawn in until we had our faces pressed against the cold metal gate.

At first, I didn't notice the one thing out of place in the garden. But soon my eyes came across a figure behind the gate. Hidden in the garden, a woman kneeled on the pathway and tended to the flowers. A large, floppy hat protected her head from the nonexistent sun, and she was dressed in a green sundress that completely covered her legs and ankles. She hummed as she worked; a quiet, pretty song that was more eerie than anything else. Untamed, dark curls ran down her back, complimenting her porcelain skin.

I wasn't expecting her to be there. She _shouldn't _have been there.

She was beautiful.

She was slightly evil.

She was my stepmother, and she had just noticed the band of teenagers standing at the gate.


	22. A Tale of a Clumsy Blonde and her Hero

**Special shout-out to Book0-0Worm for being my 700****th**** reviewer! And also thanks to those who pointed out that I uploaded that chapter on the one year anniversary of Being 15 is Tougher. That was purely a coincidence, haha. And thank you all for forgiving me for being such a lousy updater. You're the best :) This one doesn't have a lot of jokes in it, but it's longer than most of the other ones, so hopefully that'll make up for it :P**

**Anyone using Panem October? And who read Son of Neptune?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJATO, or any of its characters, plots, etc. **

The goddess flipped her hair out of her face, and continued to work. "Well, if it isn't my least favorite stepson." She said, without ever looking directly at me.

"I'm your _only_ stepson."

Her eyes never came up from her plants. "Yes, and I hate you, which makes you my least favorite."

"Ah, of course." I said, not surprised that she hadn't grown any fonder of me since the last time I saw her, "Perfect logic."

The other quest members glanced at each other, probably surprised that Persephone was actually as bad as I made her out to be. "And who are these other little gremlins that you brought with you?" For the first time she raised her eyes and scanned the group, but never met my glare.

Jill barged in, "Jillian Mistero, daughter of Athena." The others followed her example, and formally introduced themselves to the wicked goddess. She actually shared a small smile with Riley, which was only slightly strange considering they were both children of Demeter.

"How wonderful. Now, why are you here?" she asked, as if we were trespassing on her property (which, I guess we were in a way).

"Us? Why are _you _here? It's summer; shouldn't your mother and you be talking about cereal and flowers or something?" I've been lectured by Demeter so many times about eating cereal that I can't look at a bowl of Wheat Flakes without cringing (I'm being quite literal here).

"Well, that is none of your business. And because you're so rude and refuse to answer my question, I'll assume that you're all here because of the tragedy that occurred at camp."

"Duh." This earned me both a glare from Persephone, and a smack from Jill.

"Nico!" she reprimanded in a hushed tone, like a mother trying to avoid yelling at her child in public, "You're talking to a goddess! Have some respect!" She turned back to Persephone. "I'm sorry, Lady Persephone. Please excuse this _idiot _for his behavior."

Persephone glanced at Jill critically and then back to her precious flowers. "Hm, I like her. Well, at least more than I like you, Nico."

"You like everyone more than you like me."

A small smile played at her lips. "Touché." The amused look soon disappeared. "Now, tell me how you got here."

And before I could make any rude comments to my step-mother, the loquacious member of the group (I'm talking about Hailey, in case you didn't pick up on that) began telling the story of our quest (and sparing absolutely no details).

"-and then we met this guy named Jeffrey and he was _really_ cute and stuff – oh, sorry Riley – and then his mom drove us to Detroit for some doctors appointment about her ovaries and then out of nowhere it was like _BAM_! Out came Jill!"

"And me!" complained the young girl currently in my arms (which were starting to feel the pain of carrying 70 pounds of demigod around for who knows how long), not letting herself become forgotten.

"Oh, yeah, she was there too. And we were all really excited and stuff and she was yelling at this guy because she wanted a shirt and her little sister was there too! And then-"

On and on she babbled and prattled to my lovely step-mother. "And then we all fell and Nico had to take Izzy to the hospital and he told us to stay where we were, but then we got bored and kinda scared so we took a walk, but then these creepy skeletons came and _totally _kidnapped us, and then they threw us in a cell and it was really cold and boring and so I started singing and then Jill confessed her undying love for Nico and-"

"Wait, what?" Jill and I both interjected. Much to my embarrassment, I could feel my face getting hotter. On the other hand, Jill just looked angry.

Hailey gave us her classic goofy smile. "Heh, just kidding. But she was totally thinking it!"

"No, I wasn't!" protested Jill.

"Sure you were! And then we were just sitting, and sitting, and sitting, and sitting and it was _sooo _boring! But then we saw Nico, and we were like 'Yayyy!', but then he got really mad, and then-"

I smiled to myself when I saw how irritated Persephone was getting. I suddenly appreciated Hailey and her big mouth a dozen times more (despite her little "undying love" comment).

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised that you came all this way and still haven't come any farther to finding the cure. You _are _just a group of juvenile delinquents, after all." For such a petite woman, she looked awfully intimidating with a pair of garden shears in her hand.

Just as I was about to interrupt, she silenced me and continued. "So, seeing as if I just send you off on your own, those kids will surely die, it's my moral obligation to assist you." She nonchalantly slipped off her gloves and ran her fingers through her dark hair.

For the first time I noticed a basket she had positioned beside her. It was a simple wooden one, with a small sheet of fabric keeping the contents a mystery. She pulled up a corner of the cloth so that we still couldn't see what was inside, but she could slip her hand in. She closed her eyes for a moment as her hand felt around the basket, and a remorseful look came over her face; but soon it was gone and she was pulling something out of the container.

Her slim fingers grasped something that I later identified as an herb. It was thin and leafy, with small purple beads in clusters decorating the plant.

"I trust you to take these back to camp and give them to Chiron."

"What are they?"

She rolled her eyes (though, she didn't do it as well as the annoying blonde next to me does). "Meatloaf seasoning for next week's dinner."

Cue blank stares.

She dramatically sighed. "It's the _cure, _you moron. Of course, alone it will be of no help. These two lovebirds," she motioned to Hailey and Riley, "will need to give their own personal touches."

More blank stares.

"How would you know what the cure is?" Surprisingly, this came from Izzy. While I'm sure she didn't mean to, her Athena-like superiority made the question sound more sarcastic than curious.

"Puh-lease. I'm a goddess; I've been around for _thousands _of years. You think I haven't seen something like this happen already?" She sighed again, "Don't be so naive."

"Well, what are we supposed to do with it?"

She waved her hand, "Just give it to Chiron."

"But-"

Her eyes flew to meet mine for the first time, and her glare was just as cold as I remembered. "_Just give it to Chiron."_ She held my gaze for another moment, and then carefully, she picked up the basket and handed it to me over the fence.

Once the container was in my hands, she pulled her gardening gloves back on, adjusted them until they were comfortable, and then began to tug at a small leafy weed near a flower bush. She hummed a melancholy tune as she worked, and her face became hidden under her big hat when she turned her head away. When you couldn't see her face, she actually could pass for a somewhat pleasant woman. And then she opens her mouth, and the image is ruined. "But, it's only fair to warn you that it won't be easy getting those back to camp. So _don't _mess this up, Nico."

"Yeah yeah, their lives are depending on me, blah blah blah. I get it." I turned and began to walk away, and the others followed in a chorus of "Thank you, Lady Persephone." Just as I was sure Jill was about to smack me again, a voice summoned me back to the garden.

"_Nico." _

When I turned back around, the goddess was standing in front of the gate. Her face had turned completely serious. "I have given you all of the help that I possibly could. I'm not even supposed to intervene with quests, so you had better be grateful. If you don't successfully complete this quest, I swear I'll make you regret ever being born."

Gulp.

"_Do you understand me?"_

Nod.

And then I turned and ran.

I could hear her eerie singing as we left; and even after she was far behind us, the lyrics continued to echo in my ears.

_"The cure is with the woman who shall not be named,_

_Defeat the temptation, and the cure shall be claimed."_

**(LA LA LA! LALA THE LINE!)**

"I told you it would be a magical flower." Riley gloated as we walked away from the creepy garden. We were planning on escaping via the passageway to New York City, since there was no way I would be able to successfully shadow-travel the five of us. I was so exhausted that it was a mystery how I was still standing in the first place. And even worse, my arm had begun to burn and ache again. Whatever relief I had gotten from the nectar and ambrosia was long gone, and the slits that the talons had left in my arm were impossible to ignore.

"It's technically an herb, not a flower." corrected Izzy, who was now in Jill's arms (_thank the gods_).

Just as Hailey had relished in the sunlight hours ago, I was savoring the cool, dark atmosphere of the Underworld. Yeah, it smelled like rotten eggs. But it also smelled like pure _awesomeness. _I remembered the harsh heat we had escaped by coming here, and dreaded returning back to the regular world. I really wanted nothing more than to find some way of getting back to my nice, cool cabin and collapsing on my bed. But unfortunately, that just wasn't going to happen.

Walking through the Fields of Asphodel was not my definition of fun.

Flocks of lost spirits had started to follow us as we walked, and it had begun to be quite bothersome. The girls were frightened by them (and so was Riley, for that matter), so every couple of minutes I had to wave them off like a group of wild geese.

"Go away, go! Shoo! Off you go!"

Izzy sneered. "There's no need to be so rude to them, Nico…"

"You're the one who wants them gone!"

"You still don't have to be mean!"

Whenever a spirit had gotten too close to us, somebody (aka: Hailey) would screech, and it was slowly driving me insane. I really, _really _wanted to get out of there. When I explained to the group that you can only pass through the Door of Orpheus with music, Hailey immediately volunteered to provide said music. The eager girl had jumped at the opportunity to rescue the other poor, tone-deaf members of the quest. This was a chance to serve Apollo proud. I could already hear her bragging about it to her siblings (and everyone else, for that matter). In fact, she would probably add in an army of zombies or a fire-breathing dragon chasing after us to make her story more interesting.

As we approached the gate, I began to feel uneasy, but we continued through. Hailey stood proudly in front of it, and when her mouth opened harmonious notes flooded out. Almost immediately, the old gate creaked open, and revealed a staircase in front of us. I had been through that particular entrance only once before, and I remembered them to be absolutely horrible; but what I then experienced was ten times worse.

First of all, it was pitch black. I was accustomed to the dark, and I still couldn't hope to see my hand in front of my face. There was absolutely no measure of how far the stairs led up, so you could only pray that you would be able to make it to the top without passing out from exhaustion. The stairs were stone, and so slippery that you had to support yourself with the wall with every step that you took. The passageway was wide enough for us to fit through, but only individually. Hailey, who seemed to be filled with confidence after her musical performance, volunteered to lead the way with Riley following right behind her.

Giving Jill a break, it was actually Riley who offered to carry Izzy up the staircase. The older blonde followed him, and I trailed behind her. As we continued up the staircase, I could hear the echoes of Hailey singing ahead.

"_I am the ultimate demiiiigodd!" _she sung. "_Everybody loooveesss me!" _The longer we traveled, the more distant she sounded. The bit of light that she always carried around with her (who says teenagers shouldn't carry around battery operated nightlights with them at all times? Oh yeah, _me_) shone only around her; so while I'm sure her path was nice and illuminated, the rest of us were stuck in the dark.

While traveling up the staircase, I managed to nearly slip and tumble to my death numerous times. This being said, I was forced to support my entire body weight on the wall (which was something I was desperately hoping I wouldn't have to do) as I stumbled along. Using my arm to support myself as I walked was, in a word, excruciating.

Meaning it hurt.

A lot.

And just when I felt as if it were about to fall off, the tunnel flooded with light.

By "flooded with light", I mean there was a tiny speck of light in the distance that we could only hope was the exit.

"HALLELUJAH!" echoed a joyful shout from up ahead.

At this point, I had learned that apparently Hailey was a lot farther ahead than I had assumed, considering I'd been walking for a while and the light source didn't seem to get much closer.

I had also learned around then that after walking up what seemed to be an infinite amount of stairs, the lovely Jillian began to lose her balance. Graceful as a gazelle, she continuously lost her footing and nearly caused us both to plummet back down to the Underworld. Every time she stumbled I would have to stick one arm out and awkwardly push her back into her place, which was not only weird but also a tad bit painful on my part.

"Sorry!" she'd exclaim every time I had to catch her (which turned out to be quite often).

Finally, after twenty years (or at least, what seemed like twenty years) of lugging ourselves up the stairs, we had finally made it to the exit. I thought I would be happy to see the sunlight, but really it only made my eyes burn like someone had poured hot sauce on them.

When I was able to look up from the ground without having to cringe and cover my eyes, I realized that it wasn't very sunny at all. In fact, the sun had almost completely vanished from the sky.

So, as we collapsed onto the ground and spent ten minutes panting and trying to catch our breath, we realized that we had two problems:

1) It was almost night and _still _ridiculously hot out, meaning if we didn't find someplace with a great air conditioning system soon, we would probably be spending the night under a bench in a puddle of sweat.

2) Sometime in the matter of minutes that we lagged behind the trio, all three of them had somehow disappeared into Central Park (which, by the way, is _freaking huge_), and now it was our responsibility to find them.

So, we just walked back down to the Underworld, got a pet dog, and lived happily ever after.

The end.

(Only, in reality we both just cursed a lot and started looking for them. But I like my version a lot more.)


	23. Nico Makes a Bad First Impression

**LOL I'm the worst updater ever. **

**But guess what inspired me to finish this up! THE OFFICIAL BANNERS FOR BEING 14 IS TOUGH AND BEING 15 IS TOUGHER ARE POSTED ON THE VERITA AWARDS WEBSITE! The link is here:**

**h t t p : / / fanmortals. webs. com/apps /photos/ album? albumid=8682328 (make sure to take out the spaces)**

**All of you should go see them! Right now! They both came out really, really cool. And the guy is cute.**

**Hope all of you had a great Chanukah/Christmas/Kwanza and New Years! Mine were lovely.**

**Anyway, sorry guys, but this chapter is kinda awful. Kinda. I had this whole 11 page thing written out, and then today I was reading over it and I was like "Yeah… this isn't gonna work". So I started over! Yay for new beginnings and stuff. So I probably should take more time going over this and editing, but I really wanted to get it up on the first day of the new year, so I hope you all don't hate me, haha :P**

**Disclaimer: As of Christmas morning, I own two pairs of slippers, some chocolate (that I ate), and a DVD player, but no rights to PJO or any of its characters… :(**

After searching for an hour or two, we came to the conclusion that they had been eaten by monsters and we should just go on with our lives.

Well, _I _came to that conclusion. Jill, on the other hand, was set on finding them.

"They have to be around here _somewhere_!" she exclaimed as we wandered through the park. We had come across a more densely forested area of the park, and before I could even open my mouth to protest, Jill dove into the forest without hesitation. Unfortunately, all I could do was follow her.

"Ow," I muttered when I snagged my foot on yet another tree root and nearly face planted the ground. The tree branches had scraped up my arms and face as we stumbled through the park, and Jill didn't really appreciate my suggestions of going on without me while I took a quick nap.

We continued pushing our way through the trees. "I'm going to kill them, you know." Jill suddenly said, breaking the silence. "I'm seriously going to strangle every single one of them with my bare hands."

I sighed and continued after her. Her worry must've been supplying her with some sort of energy, since she had been quickly speeding throughout the paths for an hour and didn't seem to be even a little tired. I, on the other hand, felt like my feet were about to fall off or explode. I wasn't really excited for either of those things to happen.

Even worse, the pain that had returned while journeying up the stairs had managed to double as we explored the park. When we first crawled out of the Underworld, I had dismissed the aching and focused on finding the trio; but after a while of just walking around, I was starting to feel the energy drain out of me.

To my greatest pleasure, we had escaped the thickly forested area and were back on the walking path. I thought that would be easier for me, but it proved itself just as hard. If Jill had noticed me slowing down, she hadn't said anything. She continued her fast pace, and I'm sure I looked like a drunken fool stumbling after her. As we approached a lake/pond/thing, Jill ended her steady pace and broke into a full sprint towards the water. I started to follow her, but my legs felt like lead and the best I could do was stagger over to a bench before I collapsed. My heart beat echoed painfully in my ears, and not focusing on how exhausted I was made me acutely aware of just how bad the pain in my arm was.

"Do you think they could've fallen- Nico? What are you doing?" she said more after that, but I wasn't paying attention as I was much too busy dealing with the agonizing pain ripping through my arm. Though, I did notice when she ran over to the bench I was sitting on. "Your _arm_." she said, finally putting two and two together.

After several attempts at speaking, I managed to spit out a word: "Ambrosia."

Immediately, she began to rummage through her pockets. Wrappers of granola bars and an old receipt fell out, but no ambrosia. When she looked back at me, her face had paled, which is the ultimate sign of bad news. "Hailey has it." Wiping the worried look off of her face, she added, "How bad is the pain?" My answer was a distressing groan that seemed to echo through the silence. "I'll take you to a hospital; there's one right on-"

"And tell them _what_? That our pet hamster got a little aggressive and slashed my arm open?" I tried to say, but it just came out as inaudible grunts and moans. Regardless, Jill seemed to get the message.

With a new sense of determination, the girl wrapped her arms around my torso and helped me to my feet as carefully as possible (which doesn't mean that it didn't hurt like Hades). Much to our displeasure, once I was up, my body had a hard time staying that way. I nearly pulled the both of us down more than once, but somehow she managed to keep me upright. "We have to get out of here, okay?" she told me as we stumbled along the walkway. I was scared that we would get lost in the huge area, but she seemed to know just where she was going.

After what seemed to be years, we finally came across an exit, and escaped the park. We were immediately greeted by the overwhelming sounds and lights of the city; something that wasn't exactly welcomed in my state.

Jill took one last glance towards the park, and then turned and led me away.

**(HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT! I met Cassandra Clare earlier this month! And I read Clockwork Prince! It was so good! And I'm marrying Jem. Seriously.)**

I must say, I was surprised that New York City lived up to its reputation as "the city that never sleeps". I had been there before, but never had I wandered through the streets in the middle of the night and took notice of the noise, lights, and people.

We turned on almost every street corner we came across, and seemed to walk forever; but Jill weaved expertly through the streets, reminding me that she was in fact a native New Yorker. We passed 24/7 grocery stores (because you never know when you're going to have to buy a dozen eggs and some pickles at four in the morning), two people passed out on the sidewalk (I nearly joined them a couple of times), and we crossed the street whenever coming close to a drunken fight between two grown men (or, in one case, two women in extremely tight animal printed dresses).

If I wasn't cringing in pain the entire time, I'm sure I would've loved it.

The entire time, Jill was whispering encouraging words, "Just a little bit farther," or, "You can do it," and, "Keep it up." For some reason, I had a feeling she was talking to herself just as much as she was to me. She seemed to be horribly uncomfortable dealing with an injured person, though children of Athena aren't exactly known for their healing abilities or compassion. I figured she was doing her best.

Half the trip, I was either too busy focusing on keeping myself upright or thinking about how much pain I was in to take notice of where we were going, but we had found ourselves in front of a huge, very modern building. There were several strips of long windows that ran horizontally across the whole building, and large balconies shot out of the sides. The entire building seemed to be made of metal and glass.

To my complete surprise, Jill held onto me a little tighter and pulled me through the big glass doors. The rush of air conditioning was graciously welcomed after the humid summer heat as we stepped inside. In the lobby of the building, only one person resided. A tall, skinny man sat behind a large white desk furiously typing away on the computer that sat before him. He turned his scowl towards us when we entered, but didn't say anything. In fact, nobody in the city seemed to cast us a second glance on the way to the building, despite our strange situation.

The lobby also held a number of uncomfortable looking chairs surrounding small tables and a strange rectangular metal sculpture, but that was all. Jill didn't stop once we were in the lobby, and continued to lead me over to elevator doors, where she feverishly hit the button showing the arrow pointing up. When the elevator arrived, she pulled the both of us in and pressed the "6" button. I pulled my arm away from her shoulders and was about to collapse on the cool tiled floor, but she quickly grabbed me again (which was shockingly painful) and pulled me up. "Oh, sorry!" she cried when she saw my face twist into pain. "We're _so _close; just hold on a little bit longer."

Soon, the elevator beeped, and the doors pulled themselves away from each other and opened up to a hallway. There were two doors: one to the far right, and one to the far left. Jill hurriedly pulled me towards the one to our right, and seemed to get frustrated that I was slowly her down. When we reached the door, she propped me against the wall, and dug her hand through the dirt of a potted plant until she pulled out a key and shoved it into the locked door. With a click, the door opened and the two of us entered.

The first thing I noticed about the apartment was that, like the rest of the building, it was extremely contemporary. Lights in square shades hung from the ceiling, all of the furniture was either black or white and very rectangular, and of course the long window stretched across the entire living room and kitchen.

The second thing I noticed was that it was _huge_.

Before I had time to stand there and gawk, Jill ushered me down the hallway and into a bedroom. I collapsed onto the bed, while she ran out of the room and came back not a moment later carrying a container.

Sitting down on the bed next to me, she tried to pull off my shirt, but after a few sounds that may or may not have slightly resembled whimpers coming from me, she took out her knife and tore it off instead. I had a very suggestive comment about this, but couldn't come up with the energy to say it. Unwinding the bandages from my arm, she looked at the gashes on my shoulder and arm and then said what was possibly the most unladylike word to ever come out of her mouth. She ran out of the room again, and I could faintly hear water running.

I didn't have to lift my head to see the injury; where the talons gashed my skin, the cuts were red and inflamed. Leading away from the slashes were swerved green lines that spread across a section of my arm, resembling the roots of a tree. I didn't have to be a doctor to know that that wasn't good.

Rushing back into the room, Jill carried wet cloths. She laid them on my skin, which burned at first, but then felt better as my skin absorbed the coolness of the water. In turn, the cloths picked up the dried blood around the cuts, and when Jill removed them, the wounds looked slightly better (but only just slightly).

Pulling a piece of ambrosia from a small plastic bag, the girl placed it in my mouth and I welcomed the familiar sweet taste. As I chewed, I could see her take out fresh white cotton bandages for my arm. Her gray eyes widened as my own began to droop closed. I could faintly hear her calling my name before I my eyes completely closed and slipped into a dream.

**(My nail just broke. Thought I'd share.)**

"_We shouldn't have left them." a familiar voice ruefully concluded._

"_We had no choice; you heard what Chiron said. All of those campers would die if we didn't hurry!" shouted another; this one masculine. _

_The image was blurry; I could recognize the voices, but I couldn't connect them with faces. _

"_It would've only taken a few more minutes to wait for them!" _

"_We didn't _have _a few more minutes!"_

_My sight began to clear, and I recognized the people arguing as the three missing demigods. They wandered through a suburb, looking just as confused as they probably felt._

"_Well now we're lost, so we probably won't get there in time anyway." the smallest member pessimistically pointed out. The beams being illuminated from the street light made her light blonde hair appear silvery. _

"_We have to at least try." Hailey was the one who spoke this time. I could see her clutching the basket filled with strange leafs and berries that Persephone had given us. She had a look of purpose that I had never seen on her before._

_Not wanting to argue with this, the other two kept quiet. They continued in silence as they passed house after house; the only sounds heard were the occasional car passing on a nearby street and the wind as it blew through the trees._

_Someone, or some_thing, _approached from the shadows, and while I couldn't see who/what it is, I can only guess it was bad. The determination that I had just seen on Hailey's face was gone, and instead replaced with fear. Turning around, they stumbled and sprinted in the direction that they had come in, casting an occasional glance behind them. Izzy let out an ear-piercing screech, and then everything went black._

**(My mom's friend paid me money to wrap her Christmas presents. I felt like one of Santa's elves. It was pretty cool.)**

When I woke up, it was a nice surprise to actually be in a bed for once (and a comfortable one at that). Still lying down, I took a moment to collect my memories from the night before. The pain that had been so excruciating just hours before was replaced with a dull aching that centered around my arm and shoulder, but spread through my entire body.

Something else I noticed was the head resting on my uninjured arm, and the sea of blonde waves that surrounded it. A kitchen chair was pulled up next to the bed, and in it was the slumped figure of Jill. I alarmingly noticed how close her face was to mine; if I wanted to, I could count the few freckles that were scattered across the bridge of her nose (which I didn't, because that would be kinda creepy). When she slept, she looked surprisingly peaceful. She wasn't constructing battle strategies, or working through formulas in her head, or thinking of ways to kill a monster, or worrying about anything. She was just a regular teenage girl, and she looked happy. It was sad to think that that would all change once she opened her eyes.

With new strength and a full night's sleep, I felt restless just lying in bed; but when I tried to sit up I noticed with my uttermost embarrassment that my hand was curled around a smaller one. I slid Jill's head off of my arm and took my hand away from hers, being particularly careful not to wake her up. When I was out of the bed and was sure she was still sound asleep, I let my curiosity get the better of me and decided to explore the room I was in.

It didn't take me long to figure out the room belonged to Jill (it may have had something to do with all of the awards and trophies with her name on them). She had a desk with four piles of work on it, neatly organized by subject. One of those fancy calculators with a million buttons on them also took a place on her desk. A calendar that hung above the desk was opened to June, and marked the days of her finals and a study schedule.

How boring.

On the other side of the room, a corkboard was hung on the wall. Pinned to it were numerous academic awards, little messages scrawled on colorful sticky notes, and also scattered across the board were some pictures. I recognized Jill in all of them, though in some she looked very different than I was used to seeing her. In one she couldn't have been older than seven, though her missing front tooth and big gray eyes made her seem even younger. She held a trophy for first place in a class spelling bee. In another she was older, probably around ten. Jill held hands with a group of girls her age, all dressed in Halloween costumes. One showed the entire Athena cabin from a couple of years ago. I recognized Annabeth and Jill, and a couple of others, but Isabella was nowhere to be found. I guessed that she hadn't come to camp yet. There was one with just Hailey and Jill hugging in their hideous Camp Half-Blood shirts. Another that caught my eye seemed to be from this year, and showed Jill with a group of people all in the same navy, white, and gray school uniforms.

Starting to feel a little strange snooping through her room while she was sleeping, I took a quick glance at her dresser and bookshelf for anything particularly scandalous or juicy (all I found were books and a hairbrush), and then slipped through the door and out into the hallway. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I walked into the kitchen and spotted a pantry filled with food. Excited, I walked over and scanned through the names and boxes for something to eat. Unfortunately, all I found was weird soy bars, mix for protein shakes, whole wheat bread, and a bunch of other boring stuff. What kind of people lives off of that awful tasteless junk? Moving onto the refrigerator, I began searching the shelves for something actually edible. Hopefully something with sugar. Or cheese.

Just as I set my sights on some leftover pork chops (I figured if it came from the same animal as bacon, it must be delicious), I heard a click from behind me as the door swung open. Before I even had a chance to duck behind the counter or run back into Jill's room, I heard the door click close again and the person step inside. Neither of us spoke for a minute, and I was too scared to turn around. But before long, my newest enemy broke the silence.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my apartment?"

I actually turned around this time, and faced a middle aged man in a suit standing at the door. I suddenly regretted not finding something to put on before coming out to the kitchen, as I became very aware of the fact that I was indeed shirtless. I tried to come up with a reason of why I was there, but all I could manage to do was make some strange noises that didn't really resemble words for a minute, until Jill ran in looking awfully disheveled.

The man looked surprised to see her. "Jill?"

"Hi, daddy…" she said with a small wave and innocent smile. He then turned to me and I'm pretty sure he was imagining strangling me, stabbing me, shooting me, or something else that probably wouldn't be in my best interest.

Daddy.

Her dad just discovered a teenage boy in his apartment.

Who was shirtless.

With his fifteen year old daughter.

While he wasn't home.

Oh poo.


	24. Arguments, Arrivals, and More Arguments

**Uhm, hi.**

**A couple of days ago was the second anniversary of Being 14 is Tough *tear tear*, so I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has supported me and my writing for the past two years and hopefully will continue to stick around until Nico's little adventure is over. I love you all! **

**Okay, I don't really love the end but it is what it is and I couldn't come up with anything better, so sorry if it you hate it with every fiber of your being.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Nico or Camp Half-Blood or anything else along those lines. **

The next couple of minutes basically consisted of me hiding behind Jill as she and her dad argued about what happened.

"We didn't do _anything_!" she promised, though the vein bulging out in her dad's forehead made me think that he wasn't entirely convinced.

"WHERE'S HIS SHIRT!" shouted her dad, pointing at me accusingly.

Jill turned around, and as her eyes scanned over my chest, she seemed surprised that a shirt hadn't somehow appeared to cover it anytime during the last few minutes. "Nico, go put on your shirt!" she yelled at me.

My response of, "Where'd you put it after you tore it off last night?" probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, as it just led to more shouting and Jill's elbow slamming into my chest.

Taking this as my cue to get out of there before the very angry looking Mr. Mistero threw a lamp at my head, I turned around and ran back down the hallway. Ducking into Jill's room, I scavenged the floor until I found the remains of my shirt. Now it just looked like some horrible fashion statement; ripped down the middle with ragged edges and stained with blood and other mysterious substances, my comfortable black t-shirt had somehow transformed itself into a very ugly vest. Not wanting to come back out shirtless again, I sighed and slipped the dirty piece of fabric on. A glance in a mirror hanging from the door assured me that I looked just as ridiculous as I felt.

I had considered just staying in Jill's room until her dad had cooled down (or completely forgotten about me; either would do), but that would be a cowardly thing to do; and while I am many things (handsome, charming, and clever just being a few), a coward is not one of them. So, like the very manly man that I am, I walked out of the room, dodged to avoid being hit by a tissue box that had been chucked in my direction, and continued to the kitchen.

When I returned, Jill and her dad were still screaming at each other.

"I understand that you're mad," Jill said, trying to reason, "but Nico and I really, _really _have to be on our way!"

Her father didn't seem to care very much that she had other plans besides being yelled at until her ears bled. "You're not going anywhere, Jillian!" he screamed, "Not until you explain to me _exactly _what's going on. And then you'll be lucky if you're allowed out of this house before your thirtieth birthday!"

When he saw me awkwardly standing to the side, her dad turned and pointed his finger at me. "And _you-"_ he began to say, but the phone rang and interrupted him at the perfect moment. Glaring at the machine, Mr. Mistero looked as though he was at war with himself whether to answer it or not. Finally, he grabbed the phone off the wall and put it up to his ear.

"Hello?" he muttered, "Is this important, because-" I heard a jumble of words from the other line. "Yes, I am aware that my wife is outside. Now, if that was all, then-" another fast spoken series of words interrupted him. "She's being attacked by a _what?_"

He glared me and Jill, and then slammed the phone back onto the wall. He pointed his finger at us as he spoke, "I'll be back in a few minutes." Turning to Jill, he said, "Don't you _dare _move, young lady."

It hadn't been five seconds after the apartment door slammed behind her father before Jill commanded, "Go get your stuff. We're leaving."

I glanced at the door where her dad had just exited. "Shouldn't we go help fend off whatever's attacking your stepmom..?" I asked. As much as I wanted to get out of there ASAP, I really didn't want the death of an innocent pedestrian (much less Jill's stepmother) on my conscience for the rest of my life.

"Nah." she stated calmly, like this wasn't new to her, "They'll just find some way to blame the whole thing on me. Let's go. I want to be back in camp by the end of the day."

She ushered me back down the hallway and into her room, and then grabbed some clothes from her drawer and hurriedly rushed into the bathroom across the hall to change.

Jill, who was a surprisingly quick changer (for a girl, that is), came back into the room after only about a minute. "Rea-" she began to say, but her voice faded away as she observed my shirt for the first time. I prepared myself for her teasing and laughter, but she just turned around and opened the door. She walked back out of the room as quickly as she had come in, returning seconds later with a bundle of cloth. "Put this on," she said as she threw it to me. I caught it midair, and let it hang so the bundle turned into a big cotton t-shirt. It had the name of a band from like, a billion years ago written on it in large faded letters. "It's my dad's." she explained. I gratefully pulled off my shirt/vest/thingy and slipped the other t-shirt over my head. It smelt like cigar smoke and bad cologne, but it was better than the bloody thing I was wearing. I eyed myself in the mirror; I still looked ridiculous in the prehistoric t-shirt that was pretty noticeably a size too big, but at least I didn't look like a kid who got beat up for wearing a stupid vest.

"Now, if you're done ogling over your reflection, I think it's time to go." Jill said with a sarcastic smirk and slipped out the door.

"I wasn't-" I tried to explain, but she was already down the hallway. Embarrassed, I followed quickly behind her.

Before her dad could come back up and continue his rant on how our behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable, we slipped out the apartment door and traveled back down to the lobby, and then out to the city streets.

Immediately after we stepped out of the building's doors, we were greeted by a large crowd filling the sidewalk. A couple dozen people were surrounding a lady who seemed to be either having a seizure or attempting to dance (key word: attempting). Nearly everyone had a cell phone out, taking pictures and recording whatever she was doing with looks of either entertainment or shock on their faces. In the background, I could barely hear Jill's dad screaming pointless words and suggestions that the lady probably couldn't even hear over her own screams. Grabbing my hand, Jill pushed through the crowd, dragging me along with her. We got past the horde of pedestrians (with lots of "Hey!"s, "Watch it!"s, and other less friendly interjections shouted at us along the way) just in time to see a bird swoop down and grab onto some crazy lady's hair. Dressed in an expensive looking black business suit, I'm sure she looked very orderly and neat before the bird decided to take a liking to her hair. I quickly came to the assumption that she was Jill's stepmother. She flailed her arms uselessly as the bird continued to grab hold of her curls.

"Honey, just stand still!" yelled Jill's father as he tried to grab the bird out of the air. As he tried to snatch it, the bird bit his hand, and he withdrew and let out a few curses as he inspected his new scrape and momentarily forgot about his wife.

"GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!" screeched the woman. Her cry made no difference, as the bird just continued to swoop down and clutch her hair. She crossed her arms protectively over her head.

I glanced over at Jill, wondering if we should step in and help or something, but she was too busy laughing to even notice my stare. She was probably enjoying the whole thing a little bit more than she should have. When she did see me looking at her she quickly tried to regain her composure, but the amused smile stayed on her face as we slipped out of the crowd and continued walking down the sidewalk. After we had traveled a couple of blocks and all signs of the crazy bird attack were gone, I asked Jill why she thought the whole situation was so hysterical.

"Did you see what kind of bird it was?" she asked me.

"Uh, the kind with feathers?" She rolled her eyes at my answer and slapped my chest playfully.

Her smile seemed to be permanently etched onto her face. "It was an owl, you moron."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I have the best immortal mom ever."

And with that, we continued on our journey back to Camp Half-Blood.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

We got the message as we were waiting for our train to arrive.

One minute I was watching an unofficial hot dog eating contest between two very large men at the Nathans restaurant conveniently located in Penn Station, and the next I was watching Hailey slurp ramen noodles while a younger demigod braided Chiron's tail in the background.

When she saw me, Hailey dropped her bowl of Japanese noodles and jumped up. "Nico!" she yelled. It looked like she was about to try to hug me, but Chiron held her back and prevented her from breaking the connection.

Before I could even reply, Jill pushed me out of the way (and off of my seat, for that matter) and stood in front of the Iris Message. "_Where are you!_" she screamed. I had told her about my dream as we waited for the train, and since then she had been anxiously pacing and muttering to herself for twenty minutes. She had missed perfectly good entertainment of grown men shoving multiple hot dogs down their throats at a time, but she didn't seem to care very much.

"Camp Half-Blood," answered Hailey, motioning to Chiron, the strawberry fields, and the numerous teenagers wearing unfortunate orange shirts in the background, "Duh."

Jill looked like she wanted to strangle somebody (which I've noticed is a fairly common expression for her). "You had me and Nico worried _sick _about you, you little-"

"I'm sorry, Jill; that was my fault." Chiron spoke up from the background, interrupting Jill and stopping her from saying whatever foul word was about to slip out of her mouth. The centaur ducked his head so that we would be able to see his face as he spoke, "I Iris Messaged you all last night to tell you that it was necessary for you to hurry back here, but since Nico and you still weren't out of the Underworld I told them you two would be able to handle yourselves. We didn't have much time to spare, and I just figured that as two of our best trained demigods,-"

"Oh, no, it was no problem at all." interrupted Jill, clearly not wanting him to think she was incapable of fending for herself for a night, "We're both fine, right Nico?"

"Yeah, perfectly fine." I answered from where she had pushed me on the floor. Standing up, I addressed Hailey, "What about the gorgons? In my dream-"

"Oh, those silly old hags?" Hailey asked, "We showed them who was boss! Right, Riley?" she didn't wait for his response before continuing, "We used some kung-fu, a little martial arts action, and some pretty commendable swordsmanship, if I say so myself. I was like, 'hoooo-ha!' and then Riley was like "heeee-yah!' and we whipped their sorry butts!" To go along with her strange kung-fu noises, she added in random kicks and chopped the air with her bare hands, attracting the stares of a couple of campers passing by.

Riley popped his head in from the side. "What she means to say is we outran them for two blocks and then took a bus back to camp from there."

"_Hey!_" complained Hailey. Her boyfriend shrugged, and then hid out of the IM's picture again.

"So you healed all the campers? Everything's fine?" asked Jill hopefully.

"Well…" Hailey began, "No. Not yet, at least. Kinda. Sorta. A little bit. Right, Chiron?" The centaur didn't reply from the background, as he was too busy trying to explain to the young demigod behind him that he didn't want his tail braided. "Riley and I did this special prayer thing for the plant that Persephone gave us earlier, and then we fed the berries from the plant to each of the campers, but nothing has happened yet."

"Well when is something supposed to happen?" asked Jill.

"Uh…" began Hailey, inspecting her spilled ramen noodles on the ground and probably wondering if she could still eat them, "we're not really sure."

"So what should we do?"

"There's nothing else you can do," said Chiron, who had finally convinced the demigod to quit playing with his tail and had trotted over to stand next to Hailey, "Just come back to camp, and pray that everything goes well."

With a swipe of his hand, the message dissolved, and we were left sitting by ourselves in the train station.

"Train 9071 is now boarding at platform 6." announced a voice over the intercom. "Train 9071 is now boarding at platform 6."

Glancing at each other once, Jill and I picked up our bags and followed the steady line of people onto the train.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Four hours later, we were back at camp and sitting in the Big House along with all of the cabin leaders.

When we had first arrived at Half-Blood Hill (right after Peleus tried to incinerate us for coming too close to the Golden Fleece), a son of Hephaestus led us through the camp and into the Big House. When I had returned from the quest the year before, it had been a day of celebration, but nobody seemed to be in the mood for celebrating this time. The entire camp felt anxious as we waited to see if the remedy had actually worked.

A few campers smiled and waved at us (thinking back on it, I'm assuming their gestures were mostly for Jill, considering I didn't actually know any of them) on our way to talk to Chiron, but nobody was particularly excited about our arrival. The Big House was packed with all of the cabin leaders, and pretty much everyone else who knew someone in the infirmary. Chiron had explained to us when we arrived that besides having their levels returned to normal, none of the sleeping campers had made any progress since being given the berries earlier that morning.

And so we waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited until I was so sick of just sitting around that I had to excuse myself from the Big House and take a walk throughout camp.

I hadn't realized how many hours we had spent in the Big House, so it came as a surprise when I walked outside and was greeted by only the darkness. The lingering harpies that scared most of the campers to venture out during the night didn't bother me at all, and their calls and screeches were almost comfortably familiar to me.

While my mind wandered, my feet led me to the end of the dock. This was usually Percy's territory and no place for a child of Hades, but I had already come all the way there and a quiet place seemed pretty inviting after all the nervous whispering I had heard during the past few hours. The lake was still, and in the darkness it looked strangely mysterious. The normally clear waters had turned black in the night. Sitting down on the edge of the dock, I shooed away the naiads swimming just below the surface and rested my eyes.

I don't know how long I sat there before I heard someone else join me. Annoyed that some chatty idiot was about to ruin my alone time, I vowed that if they so much as breathed loudly I would push them into the water. Completely ignoring them, I waited for them to make some small talk or a lame comment about the weather, but they stayed quiet.

After moments passed and no words were spoken, I curiously open my eyes to see who had taken the place beside me. Considering there was a very small group of people that I would actually consider my friends, it wasn't very surprising to open my eyes and see Jill lounged beside me.

As soon as we had arrived back at camp and entered the Big House, Jill had been pulled away by friends and siblings of hers, so this was really the first I had seen her since our return.

I would have gone back to how I was and been perfectly content, but she had noticed me open my eyes and turned to face me.

Feeling obliged to say something, I mumbled, "Uh, hi."

She offered a small smile. "Hi." Her feet were dangling off of the dock so that her toes were just touching the water; they swung forwards and backwards, creating small waves in the water. Staring off in the distance, she seemed completely lost in thought.

I wondered why she had left the Big House, and she seemed to read my thoughts; seconds later she explained, "It was too crowded in there." I agreed with her, and we sat in silence again.

After a couple of minutes, she spoke again. "Sorry about the whole thing with my dad earlier." she apologized. "That was so awful."

I chuckled. "It was pretty terrible." I agreed. "But you have to admit, the whole situation was kind of funny."

Her laugh showed me that she agreed. "I know," she said, and a second later she added in, "Like I would _ever _do anythingwith you."

The comment was completely innocent, but for some reason the way she phrased it bothered me. "That's exactly how I feel." I said, "I can't believe your dad thought I would do something with _you."_

Her smile dimmed, and one of her eyebrows shot up almost comically. "What do you mean?"

"What do _you _mean?" I asked.

"All I was saying was that moody, arrogant sons of Hades aren't really my type." Her voice was bitter.

"Good," I said, "Because I don't care much for bossy, know-it-all daughters of Athena."

"I am _not _bossy!" she argued, "Now shut up and go away!"

"I was here first!" I said, "_You _go away!"

She crossed her arms stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere!"

"Yeah? Well neither am I!" I shouted.

A scowl appeared on her face. "You are the most obnoxious, idiotic, _moron _that has ever walked the earth!"

To my uttermost horror, the best comeback that I could think of was: "Yeah? Well so are you!"

Her eyes flashed with fury. "_Ugh!"_ she yelled, and angrily jumped up. "Fine!" she yelled angrily.

I followed her example and sprung to my feet. "_Fine!"_

She poked her finger in my chest. "Well you can kiss my-"

Interrupting her, a loud cheer erupted through the camp. Both forgetting our argument and what I was apparently supposed to kiss (I was pretty sure it wasn't pleasant), we ran up the dock and across the camp until we found the large crowd gathered around the infirmary. The anger that had filled my mind seconds before had evaporated and was replaced with curiosity and anxiety. Hundreds of campers were trying to push through each other, climbing over each other to get a glimpse through the window, and whispering excitedly.

"What is it? What's happened?" I asked, mostly to myself since nobody could hear me over their own whispers and shouts.

I asked again, and still nobody bothered to answer me. Impatient, I grabbed a random kid in front of me and turned him around. "What's going on?" I asked.

"The campers!" he said ecstatically, "It worked! They're awake!"


End file.
